


The Spark of Hope

by Draco_sollicitus



Series: Bound to the Light [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Genre: (Bond between Rey/Poe), Angst, DameRey, Difficulty trying to conceive, Early marriage, F/M, First two years of marriage, Fluff, Force Bonds, Force Sensitive Finn, Infertility/fertility, Near Death Experiences, Post-Honeymoon, Pregnancy, Smut, That's Not How The Force Works, happy ending guaranteed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-19 00:16:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14224956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: [Sequel to Bound to the Light]In the aftermath of the War with the First Order, the triumphant Resistance looks to the young Jedi warrior who led them through the trials of conflict for guidance and security. The Jedi Master Rey no longer wishes to fight, and instead turns her attention to rebuilding and redefining the Jedi Order.While she tends to her duties as the one to bring balance to the Force, Rey also navigates the early years of her marriage to Colonel Poe Dameron, the once hotshot pilot turned dedicated husband and thoughtful commanding officer.In 36 ABY, Poe Dameron and his beloved wife assist General Leia Organa in the galactic recovery from war.Always so secure in his identity as a soldier, Poe begins to realize what sacrifices are necessary when one wishes to keep one foot in the military while trying to build a quiet life, a life that involves his wife and any children the Force blesses them with, the children he prays to the Force for daily.After decades at war, the galaxy must learn what it means to live in a time of peace.





	1. Post-Honeymoon

**Author's Note:**

> ~spoilers everywhere if you’re new to this series~  
> This fic focuses on Rey and Poe's early marriage, as established at the end of Bound to the Light, the first in this series. Also established in that fic is the Bond between Rey/Poe (hence the name of the series) that is as strong as ever in this installment.
> 
> If you read that fic, you know that Rey struggles with infertility as the result of torture she suffered at the hands of the First Order (Armitage Hux, f*** you very much). This fic has a happy ending, I'm pleased to announce, even if it doesn't always seem that way!
> 
> Up-Front Warning: Chapters II and IV of this fic have a lengthy discussion of Rey's inability to conceive/her frustrations at losing pregnancies: there will be another warning at the beginning of chapter IV specifically for past miscarriages, but know that none of it is graphic or detailed.
> 
> Warning: Sex scenes throughout, always consensual.  
> This chapter: implies and refers to consensual marital fun-times at the beginning. Sex mostly hinted at, some scenes of ~sensuality~
> 
> Any more explicitly detailed chapters will be thoroughly labeled (not every chapter has sex scenes either) and rating may increase if need be.
> 
>  
> 
> P.S. Title of the fic comes from the name of Rey's lightsaber (as revealed in Bound to the Light ;) )

The aqua light of Naboo shines through the open window; in the distance, the Gungans sing a melodious aria and flocks of Pelikki flap past the balcony on their way to the river.

Rey sighs contentedly, rubbing her thumb over the silver ring on her fourth finger. Her wedding to Poe Dameron was three short weeks ago; Naboo was the last stop on their honeymoon, and today they return to the Resistance, to continue supporting General Organa in the stressful months following the defeat of the First Order.

The last weeks have been a welcome reprieve from the chaos of war and its immediate aftermath; the last weeks have been a daze of happiness, pleasure, and _Poe._

Speaking of her husband ( _husband_ , such a wonderful word), Poe emerges from the next room, dressed in civilian clothes, smoothing his unruly curls into a semblance of order. She frowns at his appearance without realizing it; and of course he notices.

“What’s wrong, Sunshine?” Poe asks, tucking his shirt into his pants. She’s amused to see that his feet remain bare: he’ll fight putting shoes on until the very last possible moment, a delightful fact about him that she learned a year ago when they started living together.

“Nothing,” Rey shrugs nonchalantly. “I’m just surprised to see you wearing clothes.”

“Why would that be surprising, sweetheart?” Poe winks at her garishly.

She blinks up at her husband from the bed, where she sits cross-legged examining holo-reports from Leia. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you dressed. What, five days?” Rey pretends to count, but she knows exactly how many days it’s been since her husband last wore clothes – six, to be exact.

“I didn’t hear any complaints, Sunshine,” he says, smirking unbearably.

“No complaints?” Rey grins at him before looking back down. “What about Threepio? I’m pretty sure he wiped his own memory board after catching an eyeful of you in all your glory.”

Poe pouts and gestures at his now-clothed body. “Just trying to give you easy access, is all.”

That makes her snort with laughter. “Easy access? What are you, a maintenance panel on an astromech? Very sexy, Colonel.”

Poe clutches his heart and collapses to the bed, groaning. “You wound me, Master Rey. You’ll regret it when I die of these injuries.”

“Widowed so young,” Rey laments dryly, still flipping through her reports. “An absolute tragedy. I’ll write ‘cause of death: extreme-nakedness’ in the galactic announcement.”

“More like, ‘cause of death: wife wasn’t naked enough,’” Poe wiggles closer to her and pokes at her leggings. “You didn’t join me in my celebration of the humanoid body the last few days, Sunshine.”

“I joined you often enough,” Rey says primly, ignoring the flush on her neck. “Honestly Poe, you’d think we’d been sitting here playing sabacc the last three weeks and not fucking like wild animals.”

“Beg your pardon?” Poe rests his chin on her holo-pad, forcing her to look at him. _Damn._ He’s just so kriffing pretty – she’d been avoiding looking at him on purpose. 

“I said,” Rey tosses the holo-pad away from her, and Poe rests his weight on his elbows, still reclining, his head tilted back so he smile at her with hooded eyes. “We’ve been fucking like wild animals, Colonel Dameron, not sitting around like old maids doing nothing.” His pupils dilate and his skin flushes; Rey feels his heartrate pick up through the Force, and the Bond flares to life with images of the last dozen times they’ve had sex, all within the last three days. She thinks she’s won, eyeing the way he bites his lower lip.

 “That’s what I thought you said,” Poe says, shrugging and then flopping onto his back. “You can go back to your reports, now.”

He purposefully transmits a memory of himself buried between her legs, her hands gripping his curls tightly, her legs thrown over his shoulders, the feeling of his own pleasure while he rutted against the sheets – ass. Dirty-minded, cheating ass.

“Reports?” Rey asks, aiming for droll but landing securely in frazzled.

“Your reports. Your important Jedi reports, the reports that are more important than being naked with your husband.”

“You aren’t naked anymore,” Rey points out, vaguely triumphant.

“I’m not,” Poe shrugs again and drapes his arm over his face. “Sorry, Mrs. Dameron.” It’s that name more than anything that spurs her into action. Rey pulls her tunic off fluidly, almost without thinking, and drops it on Poe’s head.

She scoots backward further on the bed and leans back on her elbows, stretching her legs out, while he grabs the item and studies it without sitting up.

“Is this?” He turns around, his eyes widening almost comically as he takes in her now-bare chest and welcoming position. Rey smirks at him and beckons him over with her finger.

Poe moves all too happily, slinking forward on his hands and knees, over her legs, over her torso, pressing her back all the way onto the mattress. He kisses her ferociously, without another word, and her legs wrap around his waist of their own volition, bringing him down to where she needs him.

“Too many clothes,” she declares, untucking his new shirt. Poe nods rapidly in agreement, and soon they’re both naked once more.

They end up extending their trip another day, and it’s worth the all-knowing smirk Leia gives them when their ship touches down.

***

The first order of business upon their return is a visit to Kalonia to remove her implant. “I don’t need it anymore,” Rey explains excitedly. Poe stands next to the examination table, holding her hand. “We want to try, now, officially, like we talked about.” Kalonia smiles – she was the one who told Rey that she could possibly conceive a child now, after Ben had healed her, and she was the one who had walked Rey through her various options and methods to increase fertility back on Yavin IV after the wedding.  

Poe squeezes her hand supportively during the removal; when Kalonia digs the implant out with a small needle, he’s the one that whimpers. Rey doesn’t even blink from the pain; it’s entirely manageable, especially given that it’s a necessary pain for what she wants more than almost anything else in the galaxy.

Later that night, after a briefing with Leia and training with Finn, Rey stands shyly in their shared quarters. Poe walks in from the ‘fresher, and he smiles at the sight of her waiting for him.

“Ready to try?” Rey asks, biting her lip. Poe looks at her and then at their small bed, and Rey’s confused to see a line furrow between his brows. “What’s wrong?” She reaches out through their Bond at the same time.

 _It’s stupid,_ he thinks, and sure enough, she can feel the embarrassment building low and hot in his gut.

 _It’s not stupid if it’s bothering you,_ Rey responds. _Tell me? Please?_ She feels his impossible love for her, his inability to deny her what she wants – and Poe answers out loud.

“It’s just…gods, what if – what if this works? What if we make a baby, and it’s here in this tiny bed on a planet in the middle of kriffing nowhere, on a planet with no name for Force’s sake. I just – you deserve better. I thought I would have built you a house by now, Sunshine, I thought we’d have a home somewhere, and we’d be on some rock far away from all the bantha shit and bureaucracy, and I thought if and when we made a baby, we’d make it somewhere special.”

Poe says this all in a rush, in almost one breath, and Rey’s a little worried he might pass out from the lack of air. He heaves a massive sigh at the end and wipes a hand over his face. _Like I said. Stupid._

“It isn’t stupid,” Rey whispers, blinking away tears. “Poe, darling, look at me.” He does, because he always listens to her, he never dismisses her or makes her feel unheard or uncared for. “We don’t have to try if you don’t want to. We can put the implant back in, and we can wait until the whole mess is cleaned up, and we can leave and start our life the way you want.”

Poe shakes his head, vehemently at that, and she hears his adamant _I want a baby with you Rey, I swear, I want it more than anything_.

Rey smiles at him patiently and continues, then. “I love you, and I don’t mind that we’re not in some nice little house or somewhere fancy or important. I don’t care, Poe. I don’t need anything fancy. I’m happy in this life. I was stuck on Jakku: it wasn’t my home, it was a prison. I had to wait there for years, waiting for my family, seeking acceptance. And I found it here, with the Resistance. I made my family on this base, I was accepted here, and this room is special to me.”

Poe looks cheered at that thought, and Rey finishes with, “I don’t care that we don’t have a house yet. I’ve never had a home, but I do now. You’re my home, Poe.”

Her arms are suddenly full of 80 kilos of eager pilot. His hands tangle in her hair, loose around her shoulders like it is more often than not these days, and Rey reaches up to mirror him, her fingers finding purchase in his dark curls. They tumble to the bed together:

Rey can sense that her husband cares less and less about where they are as he grows increasingly lost in their Bond, and in her, and in how much they can do in their tiny bed on an unnamed planet in the middle of kriffing nowhere.

***

Rey’s bone-tired when she pilots home from a mission to the Outer Rim. She had brought Finn with her, to test his burgeoning connection to the Force. He had done so, so well and she couldn’t be prouder of him: he’s a warrior, through and through. When they go to build his lightsaber, which will most likely be soon, she has no doubt that the Force will provide him with a crystal destined for a skilled combatant, a wielder of the physical side of the Force. Finn was miraculous in fighting the insurgents in the desert, and while Rey wrings sand from her braid morosely, he sits in the co-pilot’s chair, looking thrilled at their victory.

Rey is just tired.

They’re not talking about it, having mutually decided, silently, the way that friends do, that it didn’t need to be talked about:

_Finn was up ahead, cutting through the enemy soldiers with ease. There was an encampment of them hiding in a building up ahead, firing from windows and picking off the people down below._

_Rey hadn’t known where these men had come from: Leia had pointed and said ‘go,’ so there they were, fighting on a dusty, impoverished planet against a cell of terrorists aiming to fill the vacuum left by the First Order._

_She had discovered that they were, of course, nothing more than starving men, seeking power and importance in the great screaming void of the galaxy. Rey felt no hatred for them, a reality which did not help her in cutting them down when they raised weapons against her and Finn. She had tried her hardest to smooth things over diplomatically, but it had devolved back into conflict so quickly. She and Finn needed to protect the townspeople, who had formed a militia against the insurgency, but their lights in the Force are all the same, all the same grey, twinkling lights that are cut short by her blade, her weapon, her ability to move through the galaxy with the power the Force has afforded her._

_So, there she was, fighting under the colors of the Resistance once more, when a child screamed desperately for its mother. Rey looked around, terrified, unable to focus on the melee. Finn continued to fight, too focused on the men around him to pay attention to a sobbing child. Rey spotted him quickly – a small boy, maybe seven years old, wearing a slave collar. She saw him running in the direction of his mother, and she saw his intended path._

_“No!” She screamed, reaching out and stumbling forward. A landmine, partially exposed there at the edge of town, was directly in his path. She managed to freeze the boy ten feet away from it, and she panted in her exhaustion, hand outreached towards the child, willing him to stay still until she could get to him, while she continued to swing her saberstaff single-handedly._

_The Force shifted once more, and she sensed the movement of debris from a stall that had been met with a blaster-cannon – it hurtled toward the landmine, enough mass and velocity to trigger it._

_“Oh, fuck,” Rey snarled. She released the boy, throwing him backwards as gently as she could, and she ran towards the landmine._

_“Rey!” Finn screamed, sensing her in the Force. “Don’t –”_

_Rey reached out, closing her eyes and seeking the balance Master Obi-Wan had instructed her in, the control Yoda had helped her obtain. Rey reached out, and caught the explosion through the Force. She opened her eyes, and felt the strain on her muscles and spirit immediately. A glowing ball of energy, barely contained by her efforts, pulsating mid-air. Even the men fighting Finn stopped to watch in shock as she navigated it away from the child._

_She had a choice._

_The insurgents’ stronghold, centered in the building up ahead, an easy target for the compact explosion she was controlling._

_Or, the other option._

_Rey hurled the ball into the sky, letting it erupt harmlessly hundreds of feet in the air, sending waves of heat down onto the town._

_Using the reverse momentum from the release of energy, Rey wiped her hand out and forced the majority of the fighters into unconsciousness._

_“Gods, Rey, what the fuck was that?” Finn laughed wonderingly, eyeing the now-sleeping insurgents. “Rey?” His face paled and he ran forward in time to catch her._

_She had passed out, and she wouldn’t wake up for two days._

In the present, she navigates the bird out of Hyperspace and drops down for landing, gear extended. Finn pats her on the shoulder as she parks in the hangar.

“Good luck, Jedi,” he tells her solemnly.

“I’ll need it. Thanks, Big Deal.” Rey smiles at him while she disengages the droids who’d tagged along for the mission. Finn pops the canopy and jumps out, immediately met with his fiancée. Rose Tico waves at Rey happily and then laughs as Finn scoops her up, throws her over a shoulder, and runs towards their quarters.

“Debrief in two hours!” General Organa shouts at his back. She rolls her eyes and smiles at Rey. “Welcome back, Master Rey.”

It isn’t Organa who Rey was worried about: no, it’s definitely the wild-eyed, impatient, curly-haired man next to the general, who currently appears to be vibrating out of his skin.

Rey sighs and rises from the cockpit. “Thanks, General,” she answers, stepping down off the ladder and trying to hide the wince from her sore muscles.

“I heard you had quite the adventure,” Leia grins at her, mischief obvious in her warm brown eyes. _Gods, she looks so much like her son,_ Rey thinks to herself. She hasn’t seen Ben in months, not since his merciful exile had begun. They have a scheduled meeting in two months, and she’s looking forward to seeing how his recovery and attempt to reconnect to the Light is going firsthand. But she can’t think about her friend right now, not when Poe Dameron looks set to throw a fit in the middle of the hangar bay.

“I did,” Rey laughs nervously, feeling the vibration of – rage? anxiety? terror? – pour off of Poe. “Any chance you want to begin my debrief now, General?”

“I’m good,” Leia waves a hand and looks between Rey and Poe. “As you were, officers.” Leia’s laughing to herself as she walks off.

“Hi,” Rey whispers, shuffling her feet. She stares at the ground, not wanting to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, Poe, I didn’t think—”

His arms are around her suddenly, and his lips are pressed to her hair. Rey feels a wracking sob rip through his body.

“Poe?”

“I thought you had died,” he whispers. “I thought…oh gods, Rey, I thought.” A tumult of emotion courses into the Bond, and it’s overwhelming. Rey isn’t sure how, but she manages to extricate herself from Poe’s arms long enough to lead him to their quarters, his hand clutching hers, his feet stumbling forward after her.

When the door closes behind them, he presses up against her urgently, his hands drifting over her body, seeking any damage.

“I’m fine, Poe, really,” Rey protests. “Poe—” He shakes his head violently, and she allows him to continue his examination. When he’s satisfied, he steps back and looks at her, waiting for her to talk. Rey’s only been conscious for four hours; she had started piloting the second she woke up; the Bond had been too tumultuous when she woke up, and clear thoughts weren’t easily transmitted.

“There was a little boy,” she explains, tears in her eyes. “He would have been caught in the blast, I didn’t –I didn’t think.”

“When we got him on the comms, Finn said that you ran towards the mine, Rey,” Poe interjects, bristling. _Damnit, Finn._ “He said that you then had the option to kill the enemy soldiers but you detonated it in the air. I’d like to hear your rationale on that one.”

“Yes, you can read the full report after the debrief,” Rey snaps. Poe flinches, and she regrets the outburst immediately. “I’m sorry, darling. I just – I’m really tired.” She rubs her eyes, and Poe touches her hip gently. She shifts into the contact and rolls into his chest. Poe’s hand rubs her back soothingly, and she keeps talking. “I didn’t know I was going to drop like that, I swear. I didn’t mean to leave you.”

“You said you’d come back,” Poe says, his voice shaking. “And I trust you, Rey, I trust that you’ll come back because you’re so strong, you’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met, and I trust you. But fuck, I still worry. I couldn’t feel you for days.”

“I know,” Rey whispers. “I know. But I’m here now. I came back.” She presses a kiss into his neck, and she feels a rumble build in his chest. “I love you.”

“I love you so kriffing much.” Poe pulls away enough so he can kiss her thoroughly, and it’s only a matter of time before they realize how much of an impediment their clothing is.

Poe seems to be deadest in his attempt to convince her of how much he loves her – something she’s well aware of, due to his frequent impassioned speeches and the intensity of the Bond – using his body to drive her wild, attempting to physically express himself even more than usual. Rey comes, gasping, three times before he even takes himself in hand and pushes into her, and they manage to wile away an hour and a half before they collapse to the bunk, sweating and panting for breath.

**

Rey disappears into the ‘fresher, as she has to report at 1830 for a debrief with Finn and Leia. Poe reclines on the bed, wearing only his boxers, his head resting on his crossed arms; he has half a mind to drift off, feeling content and at peace now that his wife has come back to him. He’s happier than a Lonlan in mud. That is, until a sharp pain stabs into his bare thigh.

“Fuck!” He roars, jerking back towards the wall. Poe looks down, horrified, and sees BB-9E, the former First Order droid his sweet, beautiful, perfect wife had ridiculously saved last year, and who has, for better or worse, sworn undying loyalty to Rey as a result. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

[Colonel Dameron, I merely wish to establish a baseline of your hormonal levels] Niney beeps at him.

“Why in the kriffing hells would you want to do that, you shitty pile of bolts?” Poe snaps, sitting upright and rubbing at his still sore leg.

He swears the thing sniffs in indignation before answering. [I overheard the BB-8 unit discuss Master Rey’s fertility the other day. After completing research, I discovered that the male hormonal cycle is also important to examine when considering chances of conception. Currently, your hormonal level is optimal for creating sperm.]

“What?” Poe chokes on the rest of his confused outrage. “Please tell me you haven’t stolen any samples of Rey’s blood.”

[Don’t be absurd, Colonel Dameron. I performed a full body scan of Master Rey without breaking her skin. Her blood is too valuable to spill needlessly.] Poe roars again and snags the droid off the ground. He drags the thing out into the hallway and toes open the utility closet across the hall from his bunk.

It’s still chirping at him, [Did you know Master Rey begins to ovulate on Benduday?] when Poe drops it unceremoniously onto the floor of the closet.

“No,” he admits begrudgingly. “I didn’t know that.”

[You are welcome] Niney tells him smugly before Poe slams the door shut on it.

He’s still grumbling about nosy droids when he plunks back down on the bed, covering his face with his hands, and praying to the gods Rey didn’t hear any of that. A second later, a nervous chirp sounds from his feet. Poe cracks open his fingers to look down at BB-8, who looks up at him guiltily.

“What?” Poe demands.

[For Mistress-Rey] BB-8 whirs anxiously, extending a metal arm at Poe. It’s clutching a small flower.

“Where did you get this?” Poe asks wonderingly, snagging the bloom and forgetting his momentary displeasure with droids.

[It was on a shipment from New Alderaan!] Beebee announces, trilling happily.

“Thanks, buddy.” Poe smiles at it and examines the flower closely.

[Mistress-Rey loves flowers] Beebee reminds him, and Poe nods, not seeing where this is going. [Maybe you could] it calculates for a second, clearly trying to find a phrase [use it to convince her to lie with you? So you can create a child? With your lovemaking?]

Poe releases a strangled yell. “You’ve been talking to BB-9E!” He accuses. “Get out of here, you little beast!” Beebee chortles at him, honestly chortles, and whirs away out the open door. Poe chases him, sliding into the hallway, and he sees that Niney has somehow freed itself from the utility closet and is zooming after its partner in crime.

“ _I do not need help seducing my wife!”_ Poe shouts down the corridor at the retreating astromechs.

“You don’t need help with what, now?” Finn asks from behind Poe, because of course he witnessed that. He’s wearing his full military uniform, and is clearly on his way to pick up Rey for the debrief.

“Yes, what about seducing me?” Rey slips past Poe, tying her wet hair into a series of knots and exchanging a mischievous grin with her best friend.

“I – the droids—they– I—b—" Poe splutters before turning on his heel and fleeing into his and Rey’s room. He can hear laughter behind the closed door, and he throws himself down on the bed dramatically, moaning into the sheets over the unfairness of it all.

 _Sorry, Colonel._ His wife’s voice appears in his mind, and even though he’s still embarrassed, his heart rate slows at the sound of her voice. _I’ll be back in an hour, and then you can demonstrate why you don’t need any help seducing me._

 _Deal,_ Poe answers, already grinning at how much trouble he can get up to with his wife. _What are you doing on Benduday?_

 _Nothing?_ She responds, and he can sense her entering Central Command. _Why?_

 _You’ll see,_ Poe thinks, grinning to himself as he settles in on their bed, happy to wait an hour if it means getting to spend all night with Rey. _Focus on your meeting, Mrs. Dameron,_ he instructs cheekily.

Using the best of his imagination and his selection of favorite memories, Poe dedicates the next hour to making it impossible for his wife to do just that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big shoutout to shuns who totally called the fertility-reading droids ;) <3


	2. Trials

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn creates his lightsaber; Poe and the droids hang out; Rey and Poe say goodbye before she departs for a mission to an ancient temple; Rey's hopes are dashed once more

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning One: After the droid scene (POV change marked by ** and then another ***) there is a fairly explicit sex scene between Rey and Poe (dirty talk involved). You can skip it if you would like -- it ends at the next use of ***
> 
> Warning Two: In that final scene, where Rey is on the ancient Jedi planet, she reflects on her inability to conceive, and voices some (untrue, unhealthy) opinions about her perceived 'failure.' She is very upset that she is not yet pregnant/is seemingly still infertile.

Ilum is just as eerie-silent as it was the first time she came here, two years ago.

Finn is with her this time, and his laughter soon echoes throughout the Kyber caves; a strange warmth descends over the Jedi mines, one that was absent during her last voyage. That was where she and Ben had truly begun their vague, half-friendship, and he had helped her forge her own lightsaber. It had taken her almost an entire month, so that’s how much time Leia had budgeted them for this trip.

Finn finds his crystal much faster.

He sits bolt upright one night, and Rey wakes with him, sensing the ripple in the Force. He cocks his head and then jumps to his feet, grinning boyishly. “There!” He shouts, pointing at nothing.

“Where?” Rey asks sleepily. She’d been having an incredibly pleasant dream featuring Poe. He had been holding her tenderly, arms wrapped around her – she swears she can still feel him – and his hands had rested reverently on her stomach, which was slightly rounded. Rey had felt the smallest kick behind her navel, and heard her husband’s soft, admiring exclamation before – she’d woken up to her best friend shouting about crystals.

Now Finn’s sprinting in the direction he’d pointed, and Rey rolls her eyes but smiles despite her irritation at missing out on a pleasant dream. She follows Finn, praying that if Poe had seen the dream, he was still in it. It had been such a good dream.

She follows Finn for almost twenty minutes before they stumble across a wall like any of the other walls. Rey tilts her head and listens, but the crystal doesn’t speak to her, only to Finn. He digs around for a second, and then using nothing more than the heel of his hand, he smacks against the wall and down falls his intended Kyber crystal.

Finn catches it, triumphant, and holds it out to Rey for inspection.

It looks like any other Kyber crystal, slightly too cloudy to be considered clear, but colorless. It won’t indicate a color until he makes his saber.

“What’s it telling you?” Rey asks him softly, not wanting to disturb his connection. “What name is it telling you?’

Her friend holds the crystal closer and closes his eyes. Rey wills the Force to answer his question; Finn struggles with the more mystical sides of the Force, more warrior than monk.

A broad grin stretches across his face, and his eyes open to find Rey’s after several long moments of contemplation.

“The Sword of Compassion,” Finn declares, holding his crystal proudly.

“Perfect,” Rey whispers.

They smile at each other, completely at peace in the dimly lit cavern.

**

Poe wipes an exhausted hand over his face; the recruits were eager today, as always, but if he has to explain the difference between a thruster and a cannon trigger one more time to one more over-excited ex-shepherd from the Outer Rim, he thinks he’ll scream.

He thumps into his quarters and kicks his shoes off quickly. The Bond is humming quietly, and he’s been catching glimpses of Finn building a saber all day. It’s all very fascinating Force mumbo-jumbo, and he feels his wife’s utter excitement at being able to help her friend through the task, but gods, he misses her.

Rose asked him to eat dinner at 1800, so he has about forty-five minutes before he needs to be somewhere. He grabs a holonovel and begins to read: it’s one of his favorites, a story about a dashing pilot – relatable – and a beautiful maiden – two dimensional in the novel, but still semi-relatable – who fall in love and attempt a reckless rescue mission. There’s a third party involved, and although he’s read the damn thing fifty times, he still feels his breath catch when the other man, who’s tall, dark, handsome, powerful – okay, maybe a little relatable there, too – tries to steal away the maiden in the middle of the rescue, despite being the kriffing target of the mission. Who tries to steal the hero’s girl in the _middle of the hero helping him?_ He huffs in indignation, because it’s all so…

Relatable.

There’s a soft nervous coo from the ground beneath him. “Hey, buddy,” Poe greets without looking down. “Something grinding your gears?”

Beebee does look more anxious than normal when he does set the holonovel aside, sighing.

[Where is Mistress-Rey?] it asks, rocking back and forth.

“On a mission, Beebee, she’ll be back soon.” Poe smiles at his droid and pats it on the dome reassuringly. He goes to grab his novel, but there’s another coo, accompanied by a whirring noise. “Yes, Beebee?” Poe asks, arching his brow.

[Should Mistress-Rey be traveling?]

“Yes?” Poe says. “Why shouldn’t she be traveling?”

[Because Colonel Dameron] BB-9 appears out of kriffing nowhere and Poe bites back a yelp. Gods but that thing is creepy, always lurking around. He knows it was irate that Rey hadn’t needed its help on her mission, because it’s been pouting around base, mooning after its absent owner – he hasn’t seen it in their room for four days. [There is much literature about traveling in hyperspace while pregnant. It would be unwise for Master Rey to fly while pregnant.]

“She’s pregnant?” Poe asks anxiously, heart already beating faster in anticipation. “Did you – did that show up on a scan? Before she left?”

[Negative] Niney trills. [Master Rey denied a medical scan before departing. But she was ovulating twelve hours before her departure--]

[And you made love for four of those hours!] Beebee finishes victoriously.

“You’re both perverts,” Poe announces. “Also, please stop eavesdropping on us, or I’ll ban you from the room, forever.”

[You would not dare] Niney glares up at him, its optical server somehow narrowing at him. Huh. Poe didn’t know they were programmed to do that.

[Nooooo!] Beebee squeals with slightly less dignity.

“Just watch me,” Poe points his finger at both of them warningly and then stands to go get dinner with Rose. “And, for the record, you ridiculous bolt-bags, traveling in hyperspace is only dangerous in the last eight weeks of pregnancy. Now, if you'll excuse me.”

He leaves quickly, neck burning, praying to the gods that he doesn’t have to continue this strange Standard Humanoid Sex Education with their adopted robo-children.

**

***

Poe’s not rough with her; he never is. But he’s certainly more ardent than normal in the face of her upcoming trip to an ancient Jedi temple on a distant planet.

He’s currently thrusting into her, groaning sweet things about how much he loves her, _“Eres mi vida, mi alma,_ ” and she whispers that she loves him into his neck. Poe shudders while her nails trace a path from his neck to his lower back, where she digs in, urging him to go faster.

“Love you,” he chokes out, pulling up to kiss her. _Fuck, Rey, I love you so much._ She shivers from the feeling of his passion in the Bond, and she gasps when he twists his hips on a downstroke.

Her nerves light up, and she keens his name. “Poe!” He laughs lightly and kisses her on the nose.

“Want you to remember me while you’re away,” he murmurs, running his tongue along her jaw, ending with a sharp, playful nip at her earlobe. “Want you to be able to feel me for weeks.”

“I’d never forget you,” Rey assures him. “I think about you all the time when I’m away.”

“Yeah?” He grins at her cockily. Poe kneels suddenly, placing his hands on Rey’s waist and pulling her with him, so she’s resting on his thighs, hips elevated off the bed. After placing a pillow under her hips, which improves the sensation of how deep he currently is inside her, he begins to thrust into her harder. “What exactly do you think about when you’re on those Jedi missions?” Rey blushes and doesn’t answer, so of course Poe stops moving. Rey groans in protest, shifting her hips and trying to maintain the incredible friction from before, but Poe shakes his head. “Nuh uh, sweetheart. You gotta tell me. What do you think about? And why haven’t I heard it?”

Rey laughs. It’s going to drive him crazy to know how much she thinks about him when they’re apart, the pains she takes to hide it from him in the Bond. She takes probably a little too much pleasure in saying, “Hmm, I’ll tell you, but only if you keep fucking me.”

“Gods,” Poe groans but complies. “I thought I was in charge.”

“I let you think that, yes.” Rey quirks her eyebrows and whines softly when he leans down to kiss and then lightly suck her nipple. “It’s easier that way. Imagine if you already knew the truth, only eight months into our marriage.”

Outwardly, he laughs at her joke, but his thoughts trip through into her mind. _Please tell me?_ Poe sounds so soft, so vulnerable that she has to answer, and answer honestly.

“I think about this, about you inside me,” she begins. Poe closes his eyes in bliss and slows his the movement of his hips, putting more force behind his thrusts. She closes her eyes as well, and basks in the throbbing pleasure in the Bond. “I think about the way you look when you’re fucking me, how your cock feels in my hand.” She hears and feels him groan, and he leans down so his body completely covers her. Rey continues to talk, her speech sometimes interrupted by the ferocity of his slow thrusts. “I think about how you sound when you – oh, _yes_ , like that – when you cum inside me, how it feels to be completely filled by you.”

“Kriff,” Poe pants and she opens her eyes to look at him. His eyes are already on her, and his face is flushed, and his mouth hangs open while he stares down at her like she’s the most important thing that’s ever existed. She squeezes her eyes shut again, half in pleasure and half in an attempt to hide from the intensity of his gaze. “Do you – ah, fuck – do you touch yourself?”

“Yes,” Rey admits, face burning. “Yes, and I pretend it’s your fingers, but it’s never as good.”

“Maker, I – I –” Poe’s face is in her neck, and Rey finally opens her eyes, staring at the ceiling while her husband sobs into her skin, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she gasps, her muscles locking up in a telltale fashion.

“Come for me, Sunshine,” he begs her. Rey obeys, his impending climax singing in their Bond, helping to drag her over a cliff she doesn’t want to come back from.

***

Rey hadn’t felt any difference in the Force, but she’d had her hopes. The Force doesn’t show her all things, always.

It still comes as a bitter disappointment when she feels her courses start on the third day of her visit to this ancient world.

She staggers slightly, and then covers her face with her hands. “No,” she whispers. “No, no, no.” _I failed again. Gods._

Rey’s lost in her misery, crying into her hands, when she hears him, concerned, worried, in her mind.

“Rey?” She doesn’t respond. “Rey, what’s wrong?”

“Not now, Poe.” She doesn’t want him to see her like this. She often hears his absurd, deep pride in her status as a warrior. He calls her _diosa,_ goddess, more often than not when she’s in her Jedi robes. Rey crying weakly over a betrayal of her body will not enhance her image as protector of the galaxy.

“Rey, sweetheart, don’t shut me out.”

She bangs her head against the cave wall. “I’m fine, darling, don’t worry.”

“That’s bantha shit, and you know it.” She feels a tug behind her navel and she furrows her brow, confused. She knows that feeling – she feels that pull when a Jedi’s ghost appears to her, or Ben. She pivots, half-expecting to yell at her errant friend, but she squeaks when she sees her husband.

“Poe?”

“It worked!” He looks mildly pleased with himself, and then something shifts in him and he walks towards her, concern written on his face. “Sweetheart, what happened?”

Rey opens her mouth to answer but a soft cry comes out instead. She’s weeping, fully and suddenly, and her knees buckle. Poe stumbles forward to catch her, but of course he doesn’t make contact with her. Her husband is many things, but he isn’t a Force-wielder, not in the way she and Ben are.

He kneels next to her, his pained confusion searing into the Bond. “Rey, please tell me. Are you hurt?”

She can’t answer him, she’s too embarrassed, too ashamed. She buries her head in her knees and covers the sides of her face with her shaking hands. “No,” she moans. “No, I’m fine, I’m – I’m just the same as always.”

“Okay,” Poe can’t physically touch her, but she feels his spirit nudging into hers. She grabs onto the comforting feeling, clutches it like a lifeline. “Okay, that’s good.”

“No it’s not,” Rey wails. She lifts her head and wipes her nose pathetically on her arm wraps. “I’m just the same, I’m – I’m not.” She covers her face again.

“Not what, Rey?” Poe’s voice is steady, but she feels his anxiety boiling off of him. It’s for his sake that she forces herself to tell him.

“I’m not pregnant. I’m sorry, I thought – I thought maybe this time.” Rey whispers into her legs, “I’m still broken. Kalonia was wrong.”

“You aren’t broken,” Poe’s sharp in a way he never is with her. Rey flinches, and he makes a grieved noise. “Rey Dameron, look at me.” Rey looks up, unable to ignore the use of his – _their_ – surname. “Sunshine, you aren’t broken. Don’t tell yourself that you’re broken.” He’s crying fully now.

“But I can’t have a child,” she whispers, reaching out, desperately trying to pull through the Force, needing to touch him.

She makes contact with his cheek, and it’s _there,_ his warm skin, his rough stubble. Poe leans into the touch, and his hand comes to cover her wrist, and somehow he’s able to touch her, too. He holds her hand against him tenderly and looks her in the eyes when he says, “We’ve only been trying for eight months, sweetheart. It could take a while. I don’t want you to think you’re broken if it doesn’t work right away. And I know you’re frustrated, and I know how badly you want this. I want it too, gods I want it so kriffing much, but I’m just so happy you’re alive, and you’re with me, and you’re – you’re my _wife_ , Rey. I love you. You aren’t broken. To me, you’re the most perfect person in the galaxy, and you not being able to conceive has absolutely no effect on your perfection.”

He smiles at her, tentatively, and she returns it.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “I love you too.”

“Anytime, Sunshine. Just call for me, and I’ll be here.”

“Did I call you?” Rey asks curiously. “Just now?”

“You were the only thing I could hear,” he tells her. “I closed my eyes, and the Force took me right here. I didn’t even have to look for you, I knew exactly where you were.”

“Hmm,” Rey takes his hand presses a kiss into his warm palm. “That’s convenient.”

“It really is,” Poe smiles at her. “I think I’ll be gone again soon, it feels kinda weird right here.” He gestures at his stomach, and Rey smiles at him.

“Guess I should go back to exploring this ridiculous temple,” Rey laughs. She stands, still trembling, and Poe mirrors her movement.

“Guess you should, you came all this way.” Poe steps forward as if to embrace her, but their connection is fading. “Come back to me, Sunshine.”

“I always will.” The last thing she sees is her husband’s radiant smile.

He’s gone, but she isn’t alone. Not really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Up: fluff & then soul-crushing angst, my favorite combination


	3. Bloodburn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I promised you fluff?  
> I lied.
> 
> Angst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the closest to a "T" rating we're going to get in this story. References to ~adult~ activities very briefly, and one character is very ill/in a coma for most of the chapter. Other than that, let's rock and roll for 5000 words of paintrain.

They’ve just returned from a joint mission, with Poe as pilot and Rey as diplomat, to Coruscant. A prolonged overnight stay at a fancy hotel may have been involved; and Rey may have had to use a Jedi mind-trick to convince the hotel staff that, yes, the mirror has always faced the bed, and yes, that table was broken when they got there.

Poe looks strangely exhausted when they walk to their quarters; Rey was half-expecting him to demand a replay of their last acrobatic activity from their trip, but he just collapses onto the bed and holds his arms out to her. Cuddling is still a delightful activity in her book, so Rey crawls into bed, and neither of them bother to change before drifting off to sleep, their arms around each other, trading lazy kisses before their eyes are too heavy to focus.

Rey wakes up in the middle of the night and studies her husband’s sleeping form lovingly. He’ll turn 33 in a few months, and a beginning of a beard is showing on his strong jaw. She strokes the scruff happily – she keeps her private hope to herself, reflecting on the vision she had years ago, the vision of Poe as a proud papa, with a full beard, kissing his son and wife in front of their home. The thought calms her so much, she falls back asleep with little effort.

***

They kiss goodbye the next morning before they separate: Rey is off for a scheduled meeting with Ben Solo, to check in on his progress and discuss the Force; Poe has a month-long mission on over two dozen planets across almost as many systems, trying to determine the highest need in the galaxy for outreach and assistance during the peacetime.

Rey waves at him almost forlornly as she climbs aboard Knight One. Poe doesn’t take off, doesn’t move from the spot she’d left him, his face tilted up to look at her. She can feel him still looking at her ship as she pilots out of the hangar bay.

_Miss you already, Colonel._

_I know._ A pause, and then, _Come back to me, Sunshine._

_Always do._

In retrospect, she should have made him promise the same thing.

***

Poe’s X-Wing signals its approach as it drops out of Hyperspace, and Rey bounces out of Central Command. She hasn’t heard much from him recently, as he’s been busy flying around the galaxy on his mission for Leia. She’s already headed to the hangar when panic flares through her – not her own.

 _Poe?_ She reaches out. _Poe, what—_

_Something…something’s wrong, sweetheart. I thought I felt it last week, been feeling weird for a while, but I ignored it and kept flying. I just wanted to get home, to you, and oh – oh fuck._

Pain cuts through the Bond, burning through every part of her body. _Poe?_ He doesn’t answer. _Poe, darling, please talk to me._

She feels him screaming, and she feels him collapse.

Rey sprints for the hangar bay, where the Force tells her he’s just landed. She flings the doors open through the Force, stretching her arm out desperately, shattering the port in her haste. “Call a Medical Officer,” she screams at a junior officer. “Fucking now!”

Black One, which she’d personally rebuilt for her husband a year ago, sits in its dock, hissing faintly as it re-stabilizes from its time in Hyperspace. She punches a stream of code into the dockside computer, and the canopy pops open. BB-8 drops from its station and rolls over to her trilling anxiously.

[Mistress-Rey! Master-Poe is unresponsive!]

“I know, Beebee.” Rey leaps up the ladder when it descends. “Poe! Poe, are you alright? Talk to me!”

He’s slumped over the console, face pale and ashen, and when she reaches out to touch his brow, his skin is aflame.

She hasn’t even seen a case up close before, but she’s heard the stories about it. _Bloodburn_. Her darling pilot, her beloved husband, is dying in front of her.

There isn’t a cure.

***

One month later

The Medical Officers had universally agreed that a medically-induced coma was the best way to stabilize Poe as they struggled to combat his shockingly acute form of Bloodburn.

It’s been two months since Rey’s really seen or talked to her pilot, and she’s going out of her mind with misery.

BB-8 is a constant shadow under Poe’s recovery-pod, and Rey idly pets its dome while they both wait.

Niney shows up, a week into Poe’s coma, and parks itself next to Rey.

“You don’t have to stay here for me, Niney,” she tells it, smiling at her droid fondly even as tears form in her eyes.

[I stay for the Colonel] it informs her gravely. [I have grown fond of him. I think of him almost as a beloved pet]. Rey snorts at that pronouncement, and she sits in the quiet room with her droids for hours, until Finn comes to beg her to sleep.

***

It’s another month before Poe receives a new visitor:

Snap Trexlin walks in and grins at Rey. His face shifts when he sees Poe, and the large man folds himself into a chair and looks at Poe anxiously.

“Any changes?” He asks grimly.

“No,” Rey whispers. There isn’t anything else to say. Poe hasn’t moved, hasn’t shown any signs of recovery, hasn’t so much as breathed on his own for two months. She knows she looks frightful – Rey can’t remember the last time she visited the ‘fresher or ate a full meal sitting at a table – but she doesn’t care.

“Poe’s a good man.”

“Yeah.” Rey nods, hating herself for wishing that Snap would just go away and leave her to be with her husband.

“He was great when Kare died,” Snap says heavily, resting his chin in his hand. “Fuck, she and I got so little time together, not even five years.”

“I’m sad I never got to meet her; Poe has such wonderful stores about her, Kare sounded spectacular.” Snap smiles in agreement. And then:

“Poe isn’t dead,” Rey reminds Snap, gently, not wanting to intrude on the memory of his dead wife.

“No, he isn’t.” Snap deliberates something, deciding if he should say it or not.

It’s been more than two years since she discovered her connection to the Force, and before that it was a vast expanse of no human or other-sentient-being connections. She’s still overwhelmed by the built-in ability to read people’s emotions. It’s too much.

“Say it, Snap.”

“Poe isn’t here, Jedi. Not really.”

“I know that.” Rey’s sharp in her response. “Don’t you think I know that?”

“It’s just – why are you sitting here, then?” Snap grips his leg nervously, and Rey can _feel_ him assessing the room, seeing if there’s anything she could throw at him for his insolence. Rey would be irritated at the suggestion, except she did briefly entertain the thought of throwing an empty chair at him.

“I beg your pardon,” Rey hisses through her teeth.

“No offense, Rey, seriously,” Snap raises his hand in surrender. “But, the way Poe talks about you – even before you two were together. He was always so impressed that you were a person of action. He likes to pretend that he is, and damn if his recklessness didn’t get him in trouble, or demoted, a few times – but Poe’s the sighing, romantic, bleeding heart of the Resistance. He’s the one who moons around when he’s sad. I know married couples start to act the same, but really, I’m honestly surprised you aren’t out there, ransacking the galaxy for what it knows, demanding a way to get him back.”

Rey seethes momentarily, but then something warm clicks into place: Snap’s right.

“Fuck.” She says, at a loss for words again.

“Yeah.” Snap nods, and they both return to gazing at the unconscious man in front of them. “Fuck.”

 ***

Rey jumps in an X-Wing the next day, after she’s showered and eaten a full meal – she eats several full meals, to be fair, to the amusement of Murdak, the cook: and Finn, and Rose, and anyone else that’s near the mess when she descends upon it.

With Leia’s blessing, she intends on visiting: old libraries from the time of the Galactic Senate; survivors of Bloodburn to discuss their own healing regimen and treatment plan; and, hospitals on wealthy planets, to convince – or coerce, she isn’t picky – them to share any helpful information.

She’s gone for six weeks, Niney at her side, and Beebee waiting back on base with Finn to keep an eye on Poe.

She comes back empty-handed, and more frustrated than ever; but, at least she feels useful.

***

Rey’s back in the chair she occupied for two months, chewing on her lip in aggravation while she tries to connect to Poe through the Force. The Bond is still quiet, no hum or hint of Poe anywhere, no matter where she looks for him.

There’s a tug in her navel, and Rey sighs, and turns to look at Ben who’s appeared in the hospital room looking vaguely guilty.

“Thought I’d check up on him,” he says off-handedly, walking forward. Rey gestures at Poe, hopelessly, and Ben curses under his breath. She nods in agreement.

“It’s been driving me half-mad, to feel him missing from the Force,” Ben comments, hovering over Poe and studying his face. Rey knows – Ben had crashed into sight the second they’d put him in the coma, screaming about murder, and danger, and brotherhood, and _revenge._ Distracted by her own grief, it had taken hours to talk Ben down from a ledge of darkness that she’d sworn never to let him near again.

“I don’t know how to help him,” Rey’s ashamed of her failed mission, and Ben will understand. “There doesn’t seem to be a cure.”

“For most people maybe,” Ben says thoughtfully, not yet turning around. “But you two aren’t most people. Use your connection to heal him.”

“What do you mean?” Rey asks. For all his time in the Dark, Ben is better at healing; she’s living proof.

“You know him better than anyone else, scavenger,” Ben says, settling into a chair even though he isn’t really here. “Find what doesn’t belong – remove it, change it, transform it – get it away from him.”

Rey isn’t sure what Ben means, but when he nods at her encouragingly, steepling his fingers behind his head and indicating that he’s settling in for a while, she reaches out and sinks her consciousness into her husband.

She’s felt him near her, above her, behind her, inside her so often, she’d almost taken for granted the remarkable beauty of all the working pieces of Poe’s body – the dance of blood vessels, the music of his heartbeat, the active, quiet hum of all his synapses firing. But even though she was not consciously admiring the harmonious balance of his physical form, she still was attuned to it through constant exposure and subconscious attention.

The Force opens around her, and she drifts, listening to It and Poe, and then she finds it –

A strange, acidic tint to his blood, that pools in dark corners of his body and weighs down his nerves. Rey twists around it, wrapping it around herself, and she feels it pull her down. This is the Dark, she knows, this is the Dark’s work. Pain and destruction, come to wreak havoc on the man she loves.

She does not fear the Dark; not anymore. Rey has seen too much of It to fear or hate It, she has changed It and been changed by It too much to succumb to It now. Even as terror knocks against the barrier of light she’s built between her and Poe, a mimicry of their Bond which remains dormant, Rey breathes in, and she breathes out.

 _You don’t get to claim him,_ she informs the darkness attempting to transcribe itself upon his form. _You have no home here._ Rey pulls at the tangle of damage, unspooling it, willing it to change back to its original form, to dissipate and vanish into nothing more than normal once more.

It takes – she doesn’t know how long it takes, but when she re-surfaces, gasping, Ben’s smiling at her, looking as exhausted as she feels.

“Did you – did you help me do that?” Rey asks him.

“No, Rey, that was all you.” Ben smiles at her, pleased, and Rey returns the expression.

Then, she frowns, looking at Poe, still asleep. “Why hasn’t he woken up?”

“His spirit is elsewhere,” Ben observes. “Go find him.”

“What the fuck does that mean?’ Rey snaps. Ben seems to be much more patient and attuned with this Force-mystical-nonsense than she is right now.

“Go to the place where the Force is strongest, Rey, the place where the Force loves him the most.”

Ben’s gone, but his answer hovers in the air. It’s not even a riddle, Rey realizes delightedly. She knows exactly where to go.

***

It doesn’t take much convincing for Leia to release Poe’s body to her; she is his wife, after all. The trip to Yavin takes a few more weeks, as she and Rose tinker with a pod that will block out the effects of Hyperspace, to discourage more damage to Poe’s system.

Bloodburn is typically a chronic condition; they won’t know if it still affects him until he wakes up. Rey hopes that what she did to heal him was enough to rid him entirely of it, but hope can be a tricky thing. Primarily, she hopes his connection to Yavin 4 will be enough to awaken him – she doesn’t want to risk praying to the Force for any more than that, right now.

When she arrives, Kes greets her somberly, and they arrange Poe in a front room of the main house. Kes cries when he sees his son stretched out and unconscious, looking dead if it weren’t for the steady pulse of his heart rate monitor; Rey offers to give him space and privacy, but Kes pulls her in for a hug, and she lets him cry into her tunic for an hour. She leaves Kes at Poe’s side, and goes to seek the help she came for.

The Force Tree stands as tall and luminous as ever. Rey smiles at it in greeting, and sits cross-legged in its shade. Rey releases her hold on the physical world, and lets herself float in the Force.

It could be days that she sits there, whispering the renewed Jedi code, eventually letting the words go, and merely letting their meaning possess her heartbeat, her mind, her spirit:

_There can be peace within emotion, if the Force wills it._

_I can find knowledge in ignorance._

_There can be serenity in passion, if the Force wills it._

_I can find harmony in chaos._

_All things are possible in the Force._

_I am in the Force. So too, am I the Force._

After what could be an eon, she feels the Tree.

_Why have you come, child?_

“To save the man I love,” Rey answers. “He’s here, and he needs your help.”

The light of the Force Tree extends to Poe’s body; she can feel it wrap around him the way a mother embraces a child.  

“Please _,_ ” she whispers. “Please help me. You love him too.”

_There is nothing to fear in death, my child. He will be one with the Force._

“I know,” Rey says. “I know, but—there’s so much more he needs to do. He never…he never got promoted to Admiral, he never got to say goodbye, he never got to see his best friends get married, he never got to…” She can’t say it, the agony is too much.

 _Be a father,_ the Tree finishes for her. _Tell me, dear Jedi, what would you do if he were not returned to you? Burn the galaxy like Anakin Skywalker? Retreat and deny the galaxy your assistance, like Anakin’s son? Or become a martyr, like Ben Solo?_

Rey considers the Tree’s question, and answers honestly. “If he does not return to me, I’ll never love another the same way. But isn’t that the point? All individuals are important in the Force, all are unique, all are separate at the same time they are united. If I don’t get Poe back, I will suffer for it, but the galaxy won’t suffer past losing one of the brightest lights in its possession – I’ll not harm another in his name. My love for Poe cannot become hatred. There is simply no path for it to take that would lead there.”

She will be adrift in her grief, she knows. But there is much she needs to do; her heart will never be the same, but her purpose will not change.

_Let’s see if you can convince him to come back._

“What?” Rey asks, not understanding.

_Padme Amidala completed a similar task for you, once. If you can convince him to wake, he can return. Light the way, my child, light the way for his journey home._

“I don’t know what you –” Rey startles when she sees part of the Tree’s light shimmer and detach, dropping to the forest’s floor gracefully and straightening into the form of a man.

Colonel Poe Dameron, hotshot pilot, leader of the Resistance, beloved friend and husband, stands in front of her, looking young and carefree, his curls blowing in non-existent wind.

“Hey, gorgeous.” Poe steps forward, away from the tree, and smiles at her, a true, lazy-Poe-Dameron smile. “Why is someone so pretty looking so sad? That should be a crime.”

“Poe!” She shrieks, reaching out to him while she stumbles forward. Rey isn’t even sure if she can touch him, not when they aren’t on the same plane, not really, but she’ll try. _Is this what you meant?_ She asks the tree quickly, _do I need to pull him to his body? Because I can do that._

_Not all tasks are physical, Rey. You know that by now._

Poe hesitantly reaches back, something polite about the movement, confusion on his face. “That’s my name,” he laughs, hand almost fitting hers, but drawing up short by a few inches when he asks, “What’s yours?”

_No._

_No, no, no._

Even when Poe met her, back on Crait, he’d _known_ who she was. It had meant everything to her, then, right after a man she cared about had declared her _nothing_ , a nobody with _no place in the story_ –it had meant everything that a handsome, important stranger who was galactically famous, a renowned pilot with a legendary smile, had _known_ her, had known her name, had known who she was.

He’s still smiling at her, confused, the blue of the Force surrounding him pulsating with his concern. The blue mingles strangely with his golden Force signature – it doesn’t make green, the way it should. It’s just blue and gold, Poe and not-Poe.

“I’m Rey,” she whispers, and then louder, “It’s me, it’s Rey. Poe, it’s _me._ ”

Poe looks almost distraught. “I don’t know – I’m sorry, gorgeous, but I have no idea who you are.”

Rey reaches for her lightsaber, inexplicably, because what if this isn’t Poe? What if this is some Dark trick, her worst fear come to fight her, to drag her into the depths of her terror like when It had dragged her into that subterranean cavern on Ahch-To? She’s always known her worst fear to be loneliness, and the idea that _Poe_ doesn’t know who she is, Poe who knows her better than anyone, Poe who she’s shared everything with—

Then, she knows: even if this is the Dark taking the shape of her love, she couldn’t strike It down. She kneels, weeping, her hand covering her mouth, the exposed roots of the Force tree reaching up to comfort her at the same time they dig into her skin unforgivably.

Balance: pain and comfort, joy and loss.

“Aw, don’t cry,” Poe comes to kneel with her. “Not over me, gorgeous, really, I’m not worth it.” He smiles at her when she looks at him, and she tries to smile back. “There we go,” this ghost of the man she loves encourages her. “Now that’s a smile. Damn, it’s like looking at sunshine.”

Rey chokes on a sob and clutches her hand tighter to her mouth; the light of the Tree catches off the silver on her finger, and Poe focuses in on it, his pilot’s gaze keen even in this half-place.

“Hold on,” he mutters. “That’s – I have a ring just like that.” Rey watches him warily as Poe’s hand goes to his neck – but there isn’t anything there. “No,” he mumbles, hands gripping his hair, an odd gesture for a Force-projection. “Fuck, no, no, why don’t I remember?”

“It’s okay,” Rey insists. “Poe, it’s—”

“Are you?” Poe stares at the ring and then at her face. “My—” he cuts himself off, sounding strangled.

“Yes,” she nods, urgently. “Yes, Poe, I’m your wife, you’re my husband, we’ve been married for over a year and a half, darling, please, please remember.”

“I can’t,” he whispers. “Just – How the fuck could I forget someone like you?”

“It’s not your fault,” Rey tells him. “You’re lost.”

“Lost?” Poe gives her a look of intense lack of understanding, brow furrowed and jaw set. Her heart twinges at the expression, she knows it so well, Force, this is her husband, and this is almost a form of torture devastating enough to parallel what the First Order did to her years ago.

“You’re sick, and I’m trying to figure out a way to heal you. You’ve been gone for months, Poe, and I – I miss you. I love you.” She knows he won’t say it back, because she’s a stranger, for Force’s sake, but she has to tell him, one last time, even if she never sees him again after this. “I found your spirit in the Force, and I tried to bring your body to meet it. Do you think you could find it, try to re-enter it?”

Poe looks at her, confused. “What kind of sick?”

Rey sighs; Force-Poe does not seem to be as good a listener as Real-Poe. “Bloodburn,” she tells him, wincing when he does.

“I’ll never fly again, even if I wake up?” Poe clarifies.

“That’s quite the detail to latch onto,” Rey snaps. “If you never wake up, I’ll never talk to you again.”

“Sorry,” Poe looks at her sadly. “Sorry, I’m sure that’s…fuck, I’m an asshole.”

Rey shrugs and then adjusts her robe, angrily. “Knew that when I married you, don’t apologize.”

Poe’s eyes catch on something: her now-exposed lightsaber. “Whoa.” His eyes widen comically. “Are you—how in the hells did I convince a Jedi to marry me?”

“You cried a lot,” Rey comments off-handedly. “The beach was involved. Very romantic.” Without intending to, she recalls the memory of Poe kneeling in the surf, holding his mother’s ring out to her, his eyes promising her the galaxy. The enormity of her love steals her breath, and Rey bites off a sound of pain from how much she misses her husband.

“What…what was that?” Poe kneels down next to her. “What did I just see?”

 _Oh._ “We have a Force Bond,” Rey says. “We…we’re connected through the Force. We’ve had it for years, almost since we met.”

“Kriff.” Poe worries at his bottom lip. “But—wasn’t Ben there, too?”

“What?” Rey asks, completely confused. “Ben? Ben Solo?”

“Yeah.” Suddenly, she feels her husband in the Bond for the first time in three months. There’s an image of her, surrounded by a swirling, translucent globe of water – it’s Poe’s perspective, and agonized concern stains the memory, and irritation at the tall, cloaked man standing next to him: Ben as Supreme Leader, knee deep in the water, staring up at her with abject adoration on her face.

“I don’t remember that,” Rey says. She had been talking with Obi-Wan at that point. “But you—you remember that!”

“I do,” Poe laughs nervously. Rey reaches out without thinking and catches his hands, and it’s like a bolt of electricity flares between them. “Kriffing hells.” He stares down in wonder at their joined hands, and she feels the Bond crack open wider, more and more of herself pouring through, entangling with his spirit

“I came back for you,” Rey explains, fighting back tears as Poe’s overwhelming emotions crash into her. “That’s why I’m here. I promised. We promised, to always come back to each other.”

The next memory is unstoppable, and she isn’t sure which of them is the source:

_“I vow to protect you, to cherish you, to love you under the sun of Yavin, and every other sun in the galaxy, for you are my sun.”_

_“I vow to guide you, to treasure you, to love you on the moons of Yavin, and the moons of each star in the sky, for you are my moon.”_

_“I vow to be a safe harbor for you to return to. I vow to wait for you, no matter how far you may travel from my side, or I from yours. I vow to wait for you, and in turn, to return to you, for as long as the Force wills it.”_

_“I vow to be a sanctuary, a place of safety and comfort for all life’s trials for you to seek comfort in. I vow to always return to you, to be with you, for as long as you will have me. I vow to come back to you after all our journeys in the stars, for as long as the Force wills it.”_

The Yavinese wedding vows echo between them, and she sees Poe two years ago, standing under this very Tree, looking handsome in his jacket and white shirt, smiling at her through his tears. She sees Poe now, present in the Force but absent from her life, looking thunderstruck; she sees him mouth along with the words, hand touching his temple, for his half of the vows.

“You’re my sun,” he says, at the end. “You’re my Sunshine. Rey – oh gods, Rey, where am I?” The power of his memories slam into the Bond fully, with all the strength of an avalanche on Hoth.

“You’re lost,” Rey whispers, reaching out to touch him once more. He clutches her, but she feels him slipping. “You’re lost, and you need to find your way back to me, because you promised.”

“I did,” Poe nods, fervently. “I do.”

“Come back,” she commands, desperately holding on for another second. “Come back to me, Poe.”

“That’s my line,” he laughs, and then he’s gone.

Rey’s alone under the Force Tree once more.  

“Thank you,” she remembers to bow deeply. “Thank you.”

_Go to him, dear child. The Force will awaken him soon._

Rey nods, excited, and turns to sprint through the trees. She can sense Kes Dameron hovering at his son’s bedside, she can sense BB-8 in its mournful vigil outside the door; and she can sense the Woolamanders chattering overhead – some calling down to her for encouragement, some out of concern – just as she can sense the glow of energy put forth from the Tree.

Finally, as she streaks across the compound, Rey feels _him._

Gold, with the thrum of living, green things, the feel of starlight, the roar of ozone, the pulsating, gentle heart that’s masked by bravado and a desperate call to fight for the common good –

Rey takes the stairs two at a time, slams through the door screaming, “Kes!” and stumbles into the room that houses Poe’s body.

“He’s here, he’s really here,” she sobs, crashing forward to stand next to her father-in-law. “Look!” She tugs Kes down and he kneels, slowly.

“Are you okay, Jedi?” He asks. “You’ve been gone for two fucking days.”

Rey shrugs, not caring. “He’s here.”

“What? There hasn’t been a change.”

“Tell him to come back,” Rey demands, already grabbing Poe’s cold hand – and isn’t that a strange thing to focus on? But she’s always associated Poe with _warmth,_ the absence of his inherent heat has disturbed her for months now – “Tell him, Dad.”

Kes takes Poe’s hand with Rey and whispers to his son, “ _Por favor, regrese, mijo. Ven aqui cariño.”_

 “Come back,” Rey reaches out and can feel him in the Force, she tugs on his spirit at the same time she pulls on his hand. “Don’t leave me here.”

The Bond is still open, and she can feel him more than she can hear or see him – she feels the dazzling light of their connection burn brighter, incandescent until she can barely stand it, but mixed with it, she can feel the silver-shined path laid out by Kes Dameron, who reaches out to his son, reminding him of home, and safety, his life before Rey, all the parts of his childhood that made him Poe, that brought him to her as he was, fully formed and already perfect without her love.

The monitor’s readings are erratic, and Beebee whirls in, shrieking in excitement. [Master-Poe!] it beeps, bumping up to the bed. [Where have you been?]

“Not yet, buddy, give him time,” Rey whispers to Beebee, smiling fondly at their droid.

“Time for what?” Rey startles so badly she almost drops Poe’s hand – Kes certainly does. “Hey there, Sunshine,” Poe laughs, his eyes finally opening. Warm and brown, eyes that see her, that see every part of her:

“What did I miss?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is short but smutty/sweet/a little sad


	4. Younglings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe comes home; Rey has a secret; Ben and Rey go on a relief mission; a familiar face makes an appearance; Poe gains some startling knowledge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy lunch time update! I was going to wait for this evening, but heck, I have no self control. 
> 
> (Also this was going to be split into two chapters but after the #drama of the last chapter, I figured you deserved some mercy)
> 
> Warnings, y'all:  
> Warning 1: Consensual, fairly non-graphic sex scene, Poe's POV after the droids exit. Ends at the ** marking the POV change  
> Warning 2: In the next scene, Rey reflects on a series of miscarriages she's experienced. Non-graphic as well, focuses solely on her emotional state. Also, given her relationship to the Force, she describes the pregnancies (all brief, none hit the month-mark) as 'possibilities of life,' and interchangeably refers to them as her children. I know a lot of people don't think that conception marks the start of life - it's just how I personally think Rey would feel about the chance for a child, considering how she views lives/signatures in the Force. I think it will make sense once you read it (but again, I don't want to upset anyone, so, warning!)  
> Warning 3: Scene with Ben in the hospital -- terminally ill children :( (Hence the name of the chapter, amongst other reasons). Also, references to past infanticide/murder of children (Oh, Anakin).
> 
>  
> 
> [Spoilery]warning, more of an update for some Anti-Reylo People, unnecessary if that doesn't bother you:
> 
>  
> 
> Remember how at the end of Bound to the Light where Ben told Rey he didn't think he loved her that way anymore?
> 
> Yeaaaaaaaah, about that.

It’s a full week before Kalonia clears him to return to their quarters.

Poe bounces down the hallway, feeling more invigorated than he has in almost a year – and he’d caught quite the scolding from a teary Leia, Kalonia, and Finn, when he’d admitted yesterday to feeling worn down and fatigued for months, when he mentioned the phantom pains that he figured were just his thirties catching up to him:

“That’s not a thing,” Leia snapped, smacking him upside the head.

“Ow.” Poe protested. “I just got out of a coma, General, maybe be a little nicer.”

She had smacked him on the other side of his head at that, and Poe had laughed, rubbing his scalp.

“Bantha-hole,” Finn said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He narrowed his eyes at him, but then grinned. “Glad to have you back.”

“And next time, don’t wait to tell us if you aren’t feeling well,” Kalonia chided. Poe nodded, and looked at his wife, who stood in the doorway.

“You gonna yell at me too, Sunshine?” He grinned, winking at her.

She shook her head when he reached out to her, hoping to pull her onto the bed, and ran out of the room. The Bond closed a moment after the door did, but not before grief and anger and self-doubt rammed into him like a siege cannon.

“Oh shit,” Poe commented.

Leia smacked him again, but he didn’t complain that time.

He hasn’t seen Rey since, and while he’s excited at the prospect of returning to their room, a nervous energy permeates his excitement. He keys in the access code, and the door opens to a thrilled BB-8, and a strangely cheerful BB-9.

[Master-Poe! You are cleared, sir! You are cleared to fly, sir!] Beebee repeats variations of the phrase over and over as it zips in circles around Poe’s feet. Poe laughs and kneels down to rub Beebee’s round body.

“Buddy!” He coos, petting his droid.

[I am glad to see you ambulatory, Colonel] Niney admits begrudgingly. It inches nearer and nearer to Beebee and Poe, and it parks itself next to its friend. Poe realizes what it wants, and scratches Niney’s stomach as well. A strange metallic noise erupts – it sounds almost like a Lotho purring. Poe grins while the typically dour droid preens under the attention.

He looks up and sees his wife standing near their bed. Her hand grips her opposite elbow, and she seems deeply unsure of something.

[We will give you privacy] Niney informs him, already rolling to the door.

[What? Privacy? Master-Poe just got back!] Beebee protests.

Niney speaks rapidly in Binary, some phrases Poe doesn’t quite catch or understand, but he does hear [reunion] and [this is important] and [Master Rey was very explicit in her directive]. Beebee sighs heavily in defeat and rolls to follow the other droid.

The door closes behind them, and Poe is left in silence with Rey.

“Hey,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. Poe feels tired, but a recognizable sort of tired, a tired that comes from having been lying down for months.

“Sorry – do you need to sit down?” Rey looks concerned, and the Bond cracks open slightly. Poe’s breath catches in his throat as his wife’s love for him peeks through, and he feels slightly less nervous, slightly less like she’s going to throw a chair at him.

“I’m still considering it,” Rey says idly, and Poe grins, knowing that she caught the thought by accident.

When he sits, he looks up at Rey. “Don’t shut me out, Sunshine,” he begs her. “Please – if you’re pissed at me, let me know, I can take it, and hells, I’d understand it.”

“I’m not angry at you,” Rey shakes her head and wipes her eyes. The Bond rips open at about the same time his heart does, and a cacophony of misery, anxiety, and desire pours through.

It’s the last one that he can truly catch on to; it’s incredibly potent, and it’s more than lust. It’s intoxicating, is what it is, how much she wants to talk to him, sit with him, be with him. He wouldn’t be able to comprehend it, if he didn’t have experience in it, experience born of how much he loves his wife. Poe just never imagined she’d feel it this strongly too.

“I missed you,” Rey says, smiling at him. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

“Missed me?” He grins at her daringly. If she wants to yell at him, maybe she’ll be willing to postpone it until after they’ve had some fun. “Maybe I can fix that.”  Poe pulls her into his lap and begins to kiss her collarbone. He has not been awake to know it, not really, but he has also missed his wife, for months. He kisses everything he can reach, and she returns the favor.

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?’ Rey asks, her face anxious while she runs her fingers through his hair. She’s so unbearably close, sitting in his lap, unknowingly pushing her breasts up against him whenever she leans forward to kiss his hair, his forehead, his cheek.

Poe bucks his hips up, careful not to displace her, as a response. He manages to aim well enough that he brushes against her, right where he needs to be, wants to be. Rey’s fingers tighten against his scalp, which only makes him thrust up again, harder.

“Sunshine,” he pants. “I’m feeling just fine. I’d be feeling better if we were wearing less clothes.” He waggles his eyebrows at her suggestively. Gods, he wants to fuck her so hard, wants her to ride him until they’re both seeing stars, wants to press her into the mattress until she doesn’t know anything except for pleasure and his name.

“But you’re okay?” Rey’s hands are on either side of his face, and when he looks at her, she’s crying. His mind immediately lets go of its wild imaginings, and centers solely on concern for her.

“Sweetheart,” he murmurs. “What’s wrong?”

“You almost died,” she says, leaning forward to tuck her face into his neck. Poe’s hands drift up and down her back, soothing her. She doesn’t say anymore. She can’t say anymore. The Bond throbs between them, and she does not have to say anymore. Poe knows.

He knows her better than anyone else.

They sit like that for several minutes, and eventually Rey’s lips press softly into the skin of his neck, her hands drifting to stroke his collarbone, and pull at his hair

“We don’t have to,” he murmurs. Poe’s more than fine just sitting with her, he knows that, and he hopes she does to.

“Want to,” Rey whispers. “I want to feel you. I need you.”

Poe can’t argue the logic of that; he certainly doesn’t want to argue the logic of that, and he’d be lying if he said this isn’t exactly what he was hoping for when he walked in here.

They take their time undressing each other, and soon she’s back in his lap, her legs crossed behind his back, feet barely hooking together. He’s fully on the bed, his own legs folded underneath her body to give her support. It’s a position they agree on without speaking; it’s what will let them be as close as possible to each other.

“I love you,” he whispers before he slips into her; it’s easier than anything, this falling together. They always return to each other, just like they promised. She tells him she loves him too after they begin to move, and he can’t tell if it’s through the Bond or out loud. He isn’t sure if it even matters anymore, not when Poe and Rey become PoeandRey and they move together, and it’s increasingly urgent, but always gentle, always borderline-painful in their awareness of how much each second of this means. He can’t remember any of the last three months, but gods he can feel it, he can feel every moment of her pained bedside vigil, he can see every memory of her tears, her agony, her fear that he would never wake up.

“I’m here, Sunshine,” Poe chokes out, overwhelmed by her resounding desperation to have him near. “I’m right here, Rey.”

“Don’t leave me,” she whispers, her fingers tightening on his shoulders. One hand slides into his hair, and her fingers grip at his curls, causing him to groan low in his throat. “Please don’t leave me.”

“Never,” he swears, pitching forward until her back is on the bed and he’s thrusting into her from above, hard enough to push her up the mattress each time. “Never again, I’ll never fucking leave you again, I promise.”

She’s sobbing, but that’s okay because he’s been crying since they started, and somehow they manage to kiss, sloppy and desperate and then, just as quickly, the frenzy of their bodies slows into something syrup-sweet. He kisses the individual knuckles of her delicate fingers, presses his love into all the spaces he’d never before thought of in great detail, but he can see it all, see the galaxies mapped out in every molecule of his wife, no part of her insignificant in her glory, her perfection, her wonderfulness.

Rey’s line of thinking closely matches his own, and she cries his name out in the Bond as her tongue traces a pattern on his shoulder and then his neck. They groan together at the relay of pleasure and _fuck_ there’s never been anything like this, gods he needs to be closer, he needs her, he loves her, he –

Their bodies lock at the same time, completing a harmony he’d never really learned but knows perfectly all the same.

**

Rey watches her handsome husband sleep, his face blessedly uncrossed with pain. She reaches out through the Force, feeling the steady push-pull-push of his heart muscle, recognizing the beat of this most-perfect organ as the most important sound in the galaxy. She loves Poe, more than anything else that exists in the Force, but it doesn’t create a sense of imbalance inside of her, no matter what the Masters of old warned. She feels like everything is all the more balanced, more sensible, with him at the middle of it all. He’s like the center of a spinning, spiral galaxy, the core of a strong and sturdy tree.

Things burn brighter in the Force around Poe Dameron; she knows that has much to do with the Tree that claimed him when he was a child. But it also has to do with how simply _good_ the man is.

She’s so lost in the golden-bright love for him that she almost doesn’t notice it when it happens.

Almost.

Something catches inside of her. She feels a tightly weaving corner of the Force tuck into a place inside of her. It ravels up carefully, pulling threads of the future, of purpose, around it.

Part of Poe has met part of her. It’s taken hold, and taken root.

Rey turns her focus inward, extending warmth and love and hope towards the small knot.

 _Please,_ she begs into the Force. _Please don’t take this from me. From us._

It’s happened before. She’s felt this catching, this delicate chance of life inside of herself, a year ago. She felt it vanish after a cruelly joyful three weeks.

Rey had told Poe the second it had taken hold, had shaken him awake, inviting him into her mind so he could feel the potential for life inside of her. Poe had been beside himself with pride, with happiness, crying and kissing her belly for hours, whispering how much he was going to love their child into her skin.

It almost killed her the first time to feel it fade away; and then it had almost killed her to watch Poe’s reaction to the loss. She hadn’t even needed to say it. He’d felt it in the Bond, immediately, her agony becoming their agony in a sick, rebounding echo. Her husband had been so, so strong, so kind, so supportive. But she’d _felt_ it. She’d felt his heart break, the crack that had deepened inside of him at the loss of their child. She hasn’t told him about any of the potential lives since.

There have been six. And she has loved them all, no matter how long they lasted. None more than a few weeks, not since the first time. None that would even remotely resemble a baby – some only days old before they cut out, fading back into the Force.

But Rey has such hope for this one. It flares stronger, brighter, than any so far.

 _Please become a child,_ she tells the small tangle of possibility within the Force. She imagines cupping her hands around it, tugging on it as if she could pull it into her heart and never let it go, never let it disappear from her sight. _Please. Let me do this. Let me love you. Please meet your father._

The Force surges up to meet her, and with it, a vision of a child, sweet and lovely and _dimpled,_ just like the man sleeping beside her.

 _Mother_.

It’s the only word she hears in the vision, but she cries from it all night.

When Poe wakes up, hours later, he kisses away her tears. “Bad dream?” He asks sleepily, concern pouring out of him, into the Bond.

“No,” Rey whispers, lying on her side so he can’t see her traitorous face. “Good dream.”

Poe kisses her neck and hums into her skin, exhaling peacefully into her hair and pulling her closer with one arm around her middle, his other arm pillowing his head.

And so she shuts off that part of herself from the Bond, hoping he won’t notice. Over the next few days, Rey devotes more attention than usual to pouring her love for him between them, forming a barricade between him and the knowledge of the life growing inside her. It kills her to hide anything from her husband, but she will protect him from her fear and from any future pain of loss.

You can’t lose something you never knew you had.

She leaves for a two month long mission with Ben six days later. It’s easier, after that.

***

Ben is outwardly in high spirits for much of the trip: he laughs uproariously at their hosts’ jokes, practices his Huttese with liberated slaves, tries to kick Rey’s ass at Sabacc – and fails, at which point he calls her a total “karkarodon,” a reference she pretends to understand – and most importantly, his Light surges with each person they help.

It’s a relief mission, after all, where they tend to the wounds left by the First Order, by Armitage Hux’s underhanded attempts to destabilize the galaxy through acts of terror and the use of bioweapons. As high as Ben’s spirits appear, she still hears him weeping harder than normal one night after visiting a hospital of chronically ill children, who’ve developed serious conditions after being exposed to lingering effects of the First Order’s evil – whether it was starvation, radiation, or bioweaponry.

Between her own husband’s recent brush with death and the life that grows inside her, Rey is also more than overwhelmed by their visit. She eventually makes her way to Ben’s bunk, and she holds her hand out to him. He takes it after a hesitation, and she pulls him down, not to meditate, but for a tight hug. Ben’s more than twice her size, but she feels like he’s so impossibly small as he shakes in her arms. “We’ll help them,” she whispers to her friend as they sink to the cold floor of the Falcon. “We’ll help them all.” Ben nods, uncontrollably, and then starts sobbing again. She can feel the blame he puts on his shoulders – and honestly, it’s more than earned, through the crimes that happened before and during his tenure as Supreme Leader – she feels the way that it tears at his soul, and Rey thinks, not for the first time, that perhaps Leia’s decision to have her son go into exile and heal the galaxy was maybe not so merciful as it appeared.

The next day when they return to the newly constructed hospital, part of the Resistance’s initiative to maintain peace and rebuild the Outer Rim, Ben smiles brightly at each young person, not a hint of last night’s grief present on his handsome face. A small girl, a Twi’lek no more than six years old, traces the scar on his face with her finger, an oxygen mask close by in case she needs it – her lungs are malformed, a result of a lifetime of starvation and exposure to tainted air.

“Did it hurt?” She asks, tremulously. Her name is Hera, and her lekku are slightly smaller than they should be.

“It did,” Ben nods. “But, it needed to hurt. And it doesn’t hurt so much anymore.”

The little girl nods, and crooks her finger at Ben who leans in closer. She kisses him lightly on the cheek, right at the terminus of his scar, and he pulls back, looking startled. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Hera chirps.

Ben smiles at her, and Rey feels the surge in his heart at the girl’s easy kindness – also present is his nagging doubt that if the girl knew who he was, what he’d done, she wouldn’t be so free in her love.

The girl must be Force-sensitive, Rey realizes with a start, because her signature flares curiously at the same time Ben’s guilt rises. “Don’t feel bad,” Hera tells him. “I think you’re good, now. That’s what counts.” She smiles at him cheerfully, and Ben cups her small cheek in his hand, his hand that’s larger than her entire face. Her lekku cross twice  – Twi’leki for ‘I love you,’ and Ben rests his forehead on Hera’s briefly.

There are tears on his face when they leave her room, and he doesn’t so much as flinch when Rey reaches up to wipe them away. “She’s going to die,” he whispers, miserably. They’re in the lift now, heading towards the ground.

“Yes,” Rey answers, simply. “She is.” Ben reaches out for her hand subconsciously, and she grasps it, trying to anchor him to this moment.

“There’s nothing we can do for her.” Ben says it with a great and heavy finality.

“No, there isn’t.” Rey squeezes his hand reassuringly. Ben is an incredible healer, and she’s getting better at it: but they can’t regrow organs, not like this.

“She’s too young.”

Rey shrugs. “But she’s happy. The length of her life doesn’t discount how much it means.”

Ben nods, briefly, and requests a brief reprieve. Rey doesn’t need the Force to know that he weeps in his bunk for Hera, and the other children, and probably the entire galaxy, but he emerges off the Falcon an hour later dry-eyed, and returns to the hospital, to help heal those that still have a chance, and to offer kindness and comfort to those who don’t.

***

Rey’s X-Wing suffered a malfunction some weeks back after passing through a highly irradiated asteroid field, so Ben insisted on giving her a ride back to the Resistance at the end of their mission.

“I’ll slow down to 500 klicks per hour and kick you out the hatch, I won’t even park,” he told her, grinning, after she worried aloud that he might get in trouble for being on base.

Rey rolled her eyes at him but relented. “Sounds safe.”

“You’re a Jedi, you’ll land on your feet.” Ben waved his hand dismissively, already perkier having won the argument.

“That’s Lotho-Cats,” Rey poked him in the arm and ducked his retaliatory swat.

“Same difference, with the number of lives you seem to have.” He had a point.

Now, she’s standing behind the pilot’s chair on the Millennium Falcon, watching space flash by quickly. Ben’s humming, a Corellian lullaby that Han used to sing to him – he hadn’t told her that, but she feels his grief in the Force, and realizes that must be its origin – and she feels slightly sleepy from the peace of the moment. She’s been tired this week, more and more so; but the literature Kalonia had given her several years ago, when she and Poe first started trying, suggests that this is a fairly normal reaction to her early stage of pregnancy.

As if reacting to her train of thought, a tug behind her navel indicates to her that someone’s come to visit them.

“Hey, Jedi,” the Force-ghost of Anakin Skywalker grins at her. He’s in his twenties today, indicated by his robotic hand and lack of a Padawan’s braid. “Hey, Padawan.” The man winks at his grandson, who most likely rolls his eyes.

“Ugh. I told you to stop calling me that.” Ben doesn’t even turn around to greet his grandfather.

“I will when she promotes you to Knight. Don’t feel bad, Benny, even if you are the first thirty-year-old Padawan.”

Ben does turn around at that, to scowl impressively at his grandfather; it probably doesn’t have the intended terrifying effect, considering his grandfather was Darth Vader, the most powerful Sith Lord in history, for thirty years. Sighing at his lack of success, Ben returns to flying the ship.

“I see congratulations are in order,” Anakin beams at Rey, bangs in his eyes. He leans against the bulkhead, and his eyes crinkle fondly. “Please, send the Colonel my regards. What a happy time for both of you.”

Anakin would have loved to have raised his children, Rey knows – he simply _loves_ children, much like his grandson. They’ve talked about what finally pitched him forward into the Dark: it was the slaying of Younglings at the Jedi Temple that had twisted him beyond control, beyond recognition.

“What was that?” Ben twists around, Hyperspace still flashing by. “Congratulations for what?” His eyes narrow suspiciously, and Rey fortifies the barrier around the small, flickering presence inside of her. It’s become increasingly difficult, but she doesn’t want anyone to know. Not before Poe.

“Uh.” Anakin looks between his grandson and Rey. “For Dameron…waking up? From his coma?” Ben doesn’t buy that for a second, but they’re nearing the base, so he turns around to fiddle with the console.

Rey frowns at Anakin and shakes her head; the elder Skywalker shrugs, pulling a silly face, his hands in the air, as if to say, _how was I supposed to know?_

They drop out of Hyperspace, the Falcon lurching slightly – Ben is a solid pilot, but not an ace like his father or Poe – and then she feels a strange rush of cold from her head down her spine.

“Rey?” Anakin asks, concerned, pushing off the wall. “Ben, help Rey.”

“What?” Ben looks up from the controls, mid-engagement of the secondary engines for landing protocol. He pales, and Rey blinks, not understanding why the floor is so much closer, getting closer all the time. “Rey!” he shouts, leaping up to catch her.

She doesn’t know if he does; all she knows is darkness.

**

It’s been fourteen weeks since Poe’s seen his wife, more than two months, and she’s set to return today or tomorrow. The Bond has been down for a few weeks, as she and Ben navigate their Jedi mission – the last thing he’d seen was a hospital, and she’d closed the Bond almost without warning after something happened with a small child – and he misses her desperately. But she’ll be back soon, so soon, and Poe’s feeling pretty good. More than good.

 Gods, he misses his wife.

He walks towards mess, hands tucked in his pockets while he whistles aimlessly. Rey will come home, and he can surprise her with the news that in a few months he can retire with a recently obtained blessing from Leia; he’ll have served ten full years in the Resistance. They can settle down on some rock somewhere -- Yavin, Spira, he doesn’t care as long as she’s there – and he can build her that house he’s always talking about.

And maybe he dreams about something in addition to waking up next to his beautiful wife in their bed; the part of him he can’t quite suppress – not even after two years of hope leading to nothing – imagines small feet running into their room, tiny bodies jumping into their bed and waking them up with sweet, happy giggles. The optimist in Poe, the one that somehow survived the war and the near loss of Rey, lets dreams of their children mingle with his vision for their future. Poe tucks that part of the dream away, and tells himself that what he has is enough, is more than he ever could have hoped for. He’s married to the love of his life, the sun to his moon, and they are incandescently happy, no matter what.

His daydream is cut short suddenly as someone calls his name. “Colonel Dameron!” Rizza scurries towards him looking anxious.

 “Hey, Rizza,” he grins at her, but the expression freezes when he sees her face up close. “What’s wrong, Lieutenant?”

“Your wife, sir,” she gasps, clutching what must be a stitch in her side. Poe’s entire body locks down in terror. “Your wife, she’s back – she – she—” Her eyes are wide, panicked.

“Tell me,” Poe orders firmly.

“She was carried off the Millennium Falcon by Ben Solo,” Rizza squeaks. “Unconscious. She was taken to emergency care, sir.”

Poe accidentally slams his shoulder into Rizza as he sprints past her towards Med Bay.

He doesn’t think about anything, just reaches out and tries to latch onto Rey, but the Bond is still closed. That could be because she was unconscious, or in pain – but no, she hasn’t tried to shut him out to hide her pain since the nerve attacks stopped two years ago on Endor.

Poe sees Ben standing at the end of the corridor in Med Bay, hands locked behind his back while he stares through an observation window. The sight of him only makes Poe’s heart beat faster in his panic. Things must be really bad if Ben’s allowed to walk freely around headquarters – he has a month left in his sentence.

“Where is she?” Poe demands as soon as he’s within earshot. “Where the fuck is my wife?”

“Hello to you too, Poe. Been what, two years?” Ben says, not turning around. Poe’s gonna shoot him. They made it through an entire war on opposite sides without killing each other, but he’s going to shoot him, right fucking now.

“Cut the shit, Solo,” Poe snaps, grabbing him by his stupid, ridiculous Jedi robes. “What the fuck happened?’  Ben nods his head towards the window, and Poe sees a team of doctors working on some unseen figure – _Rey._ All he can see of her is her feet, covered by blankets, but he knows it’s her. He’d know it was her anywhere.

“She was standing next to me on the Falcon, and when we dropped out of Hyperspace, she collapsed.” Ben tells him, sounding way too neutral about that.

“Is she okay? Is she going to be okay?” Poe gasps, and he forces himself to breathe in through his nose, out through his mouth, like Kalonia had shown him. Kalonia’s in there now, handing equipment to another Medical Officer. She meets his eyes and looks away, talking rapidly. He loses the rhythm of his breathing.

“I didn’t know until I caught her, Poe.” Ben’s still talking next to him, probably aiming for a calming tone of voice, but it’s lost on Poe.

“Didn’t know _what_?” Poe knows he’s moving towards hyperventilation, and his hands come up to brace himself against the glass. The bevy of doctors won’t move from around Rey’s bed. He just wants to see her, _Force_ , let him see her.

“She’s fine, Poe. A little anemic, but fine.” Ben keeps trying to soothe him, but Rey’s the only thing in the galaxy that can calm him down now.

Finally, a doctor moves from the front of the bed, and he can see her. Rey’s leaning against a pillow, the bed on an incline so she can sit propped up. She looks pale, but happy. So incredibly happy. He stares at her, enraptured. It’s all Poe can do, stare at her. Fuck, she’s beautiful.

Rey sees him through the window then, and her smile grows wider. Another doctor moves away to talk to the first, and that’s when he sees it.

A holo-scan, projected above the bed, of Rey’s abdomen. Underneath the fuzzy image is the constant display of Rey’s heartbeat.

And below it, another heartbeat.

Poe trips forward, presses himself against the glass as much as he can, mouth hanging open, trying to take it all in, his wife, the image, the extra heartbeat. Rey looks back and forth between him and the scan, laughing and crying. The Bond bursts open, golden light pouring into his mind, and snatches of thoughts tumble through: _we’re at fifteen weeks,_ and, _Kalonia says it’s as healthy as possible,_ the most common thought, _oh gods, Poe_ and finally, an apologetic _I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure._ It’s a symphony of joy and light and love, and Poe’s immediately crying from it.

“You should go talk to your wife, Colonel.” Ben is dry, amused. Poe nods and starts to walk to the door.

He grabs Ben’s arm as he walks by. “Thank you,” he whispers, looking up at this man who isn’t quite his brother yet, but will certainly always be more than ‘friend’. “This is the third time you’ve brought her back to me. Thank you.” He lets go before Ben can respond, and he walks into his wife’s room, into the brightest future he could ever imagine.

**

Ben Solo watches Poe stumble into the exam room, and he catches Rey’s eye when she looks through the window at him, a content smiling playing on her beautiful face. He watches Poe trip over himself to kneel at his wife’s side, shoulders shaking from unfathomable emotion, his calloused hands coming to hover over her stomach reverently; he can’t see Poe’s face, but he imagines it backlit with some holy, sacred light while he cries over his unborn child. Ben watches Rey pull a hand through her husband’s hair, smiling peacefully at him, her hand drifting to link with his; he watches as she forgets about everything in the galaxy except for Poe and their child.

Ben Solo watches as Poe Dameron gets everything he ever wanted. He turns and walks down the hallway, pulling his robe tighter to his body.

 _I am a Jedi,_ he tells himself. _I am finally at peace._ It gets easier to believe all the time.

He does not let himself think of the vision he had two years ago, the vision that still haunts him, that haunted him the entire mission, the vision of a boy with his own hair, his own eyes laughing in his arms, his precious wife by his side.

Rey – Rey _Dameron_ – is not his. And neither is that future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooooop there it is (remember a ~happy~ ending was guaranteed, no matter what happens next)
> 
> p.s. the original ending for this chapter was going to be right after Rey collapsed and Ben caught her, mwahahahah I changed my mind because I love you all and don't want to hurt you anymore (more than necessary)


	5. 51 Weeks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey's pregnancy:  
> This takes place over the course of the rest of Rey's pregnancy, a series of small to longer scenes from the various weeks. POVs include Rey, Poe, Ben, and Leia. 
> 
> Week 22 (as a reminder, Rey was at 15 weeks when Poe found out): Rey POV  
> Week 28: Rey POV  
> Week 35: Poe POV  
> Week 42: Poe POV  
> Week 51: Ben POV; Poe POV; Leia POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I do the warnings, let me just say: This all ends happily
> 
>  
> 
> Warning 1: Implied sex/oral sex/happy sex  
> Warning 2: mildly terrifying, semi-graphic depiction of childbirth where the mother/child's life are both in danger (detached placenta)  
> Warning 3: Premature birth (given the SW calendar, I believe 56 weeks would be the length of a regular humanoid pregnancy--I think the title of this fic suggests that they don't quite get there)

Week 22:

Rey shifts uncomfortably in her high heels; she really wishes she’d thought to wear flat footwear, or a less revealing dress, but she’s honestly getting tired of wearing looser and looser tunics here in the third month of her pregnancy. Her abdomen is undeniably rounded now, and her breasts feel heavier each day; an excuse to wear a nice dress and feel pretty is exactly what she needed.

It’s even better that she’s standing next to her two best friends in the galaxy as Leia presides over the ceremony.

The wedding had been postponed, of course, after Poe had been put in the coma; now, General Finn of the Resistance Army, and Ms. Rose Tico, head of engineering in the effort to rebuild the galaxy, are finally, finally becoming husband and wife. 

Finn and Rose can’t stop smiling, and Rey, matron of honor – a title she’d protested over, nose wrinkled – can’t stop either. Her husband stands behind Finn as the best man, and he catches her eye every so often and beams with her.

The sun is warm on the surface of the planet; they had gone outside the base, neither Finn nor Rose wanting a large, special ceremony. Leia looks peaceful as she joins their hands and leads them through the Standard Galactic vows. A collection of officers, mostly soldiers under Finn’s command, and a handful of mechanics sit in comfortable chairs that Rey is definitely, _definitely_ not looking at yearningly.

She wobbles briefly, ankles throbbing, as she hands Rose the ring before the final vows, and Poe looks overly concerned at the motion. Rey rolls her eyes at him, and then smiles at a briefly worried Finn reassuringly.

When Rose and Finn kiss, Leia hands Rey a tissue to wipe her tears. They’ve all been through so much – and now Rose and Finn get to have their own, secured happy ending. Rey couldn’t be happier for them.

At the reception afterward, outdoors and mostly staffed by cheery droids who have a deep affection for Rose, Leia announces, “Mr. and Mrs. Tico!” for the first time, and everyone cheers. Finn had been delighted to take his wife’s last name, and he’s three shots in with Corellian whisky when he pulls Rose and Poe tight to his chest and shouts, “These are the people who gave me my name!” Rey laughs at her best friend and hugs him.

She and Poe dance together while the sun sets over the strangely flat planet. Streaks of orange and red and purple cascade over the darkening sky, and Rey rests her head on her husband’s broad shoulder while he hums along with the song.

“I love you so much,” Poe whispers in her ear.

Rey smiles contentedly. _I love you too, flyboy._

One of his hands drifts down and cups her stomach reverently while they slowly dance in the tall grass.

“Our first dance was out here,” Rey muses aloud.

Poe pulls back slightly to kiss her on the cheek. “I remember. I remember how much I loved you even then.” His thumb strokes lovingly over the evidence of that love. Rey wipes a tear out of her eye, and smiles at the waltzing figures of Finn and Rose, not ten feet away.

“What’s wrong, Sunshine?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Rey answers easily. “Everything’s perfect.” 

***

She changes her assessment the next day, when Poe is a humanoid whirlwind spinning in and out and around their room. Rey had made the mistake of saying she was tired and didn’t want to get out of bed, and now:

“Here!” Poe beams, striding into the room, arms laden with pillows. “More blankets! More pillows!” He starts to fuss over Rey, whose ankles aren’t even that swollen yet, for gods’ sake, she’s barely three months pregnant.

“Poe,” Rey grits between her teeth. “Poe, what are you doing?”

“You said you were sore.” Poe’s kneeling at the side of the bed, arranging blankets and not looking up. “So I got some stuff. And some tea! I got it from Leia. And I got—”

“Poe, I really don’t need all that, I swear,” Rey pushes her fingers into her temples and stares at her incredibly frustrating husband.

[I am of the Colonel’s opinion] Niney announces solemnly, moving to tug at the blankets with its mechanical arms. [You need more blankets].

“Poe, I really don’t – Poe, I’m sore because I walked all day in heels at the wedding, not –”

“The heels!’ Poe roars, triumphantly. He leaps to his feet and strides to their closet unit. “ I knew they were a mistake! Here, I’ll get rid of them, and I’ll go get you some slippers.”

“Poe Dameron, you drop those shoes this instant! I barely wear heels, those are my only pair – where are you going?” Poe’s jogging to the door already, heels clutched in his hand.

“Trash compactor!” He declares with a ridiculous note of finality. “You’ll never have to look at them again.”

“Stop, that’s not…ugh.” Rey leans back on the over-stuffed bed and buries her face in her hand, moaning in frustration.

Poe shouts in surprise and runs, sliding along the floor on his knees until he’s kneeling in front of her. “Sweetheart? Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” He demands. His hands come to cup her cheeks.

“You’re suffocating me,” Rey grumbles. “That’s what’s wrong.”

“I’m what?” Poe looks stricken, and Rey sighs, already sorry for having offended her sweet if highly overbearing husband.

“It’s just – I’m not made of glass suddenly, Poe. If my ankles are swollen, it’s because that’s natural, and because I did something that would probably normally make them hurt. I love you darling, and I know you’re just trying to make my life easier, but I will go crazy if you keep doing all these things as if I can’t do them for myself.” He’s been on and off with his attentions these last weeks – sometimes he’s normal, but then other times he’s swarming her more than a mother Porg.

“I love you too,” Poe takes her hand and kisses her palm. “I just – fuck, I just want you to be comfortable and happy. You’re so incredible, you’re…you’re the mother of my child, and I want everything to be perfect for you.”

Rey groans then and covers her face with her hands.

“At the risk of sounding overbearing – what’s wrong?” Poe asks her anxiously.

“Nothing, you’re going to think I’m crazy,” Rey mumbles, not moving her hands.

 _What is it, sweetheart?_ Poe’s staring at her, and she can’t hide the tumult of feeling, driven entirely by hormones, that leaks into the Bond. It’s getting harder and harder to hide the flare-ups of her emotions from him.

“Oh,” Poe grins at her, and rubs circles into her knees that only makes her groan again. “Oh, I can do something about that. Can I? Before you get mad at me again and try to throw me out an airlock?”

“Fine,” Rey leans back on the bed so her back is on the wall, and holds her hands out. “Come on, papa.”

Poe doesn’t move for a solid thirty seconds, and she’s worried that the bloodburn is back, that something is wrong, but the Bond is almost still in how full it suddenly is, and Rey asks, “Poe?” unsure of what’s going on.

The look in his eyes is staggering, and she catches on pretty quickly when he launches himself on the bed and kisses her with everything he’s got.

Afterwards, he kisses her hair and strokes a hand down her bare, sweaty back, and murmurs, “do you think maybe we just got you double-pregnant?”

He laughs when she picks him up in the Force and deposits him none-too-gently on the floor.

***

Week 28:

They move off base during the fourth month. Colonel Poe Dameron becomes a civilian without much aplomb; his eagerness to start their new life is infectious, and Rey, who has always been wary of change, finds herself looking forward to the transformation their life is about to undergo.

They’re going to build a house on Yavin 4, a few miles away from Kes. Poe had been over the moons in excitement when Rey shyly suggested they settle in the place where he grew up.

“I want to raise our child there,” she told him. “Near your dad, and the Tree.”

“And the Woolamanders who are still obsessed with you. Free babysitting!” Poe kissed her and they’d embraced for a long, unbroken moment.

Now, they’re packing up their quarters and preparing the Falcon with supplies. Ben agreed to help them move, claiming it was a Jedi act of mercy. It doesn’t hurt that he and Rey decided that Yavin 4, with its connection to the Rebellion and the Resistance, would be an excellent site for the first temple in their renewed Jedi order.

Well, Ben and Finn and Poe are packing – all three of them have found increasingly clever ways to not let Rey pick things up.

“I’m more powerful in the Force than you are, Solo,” she gripes at her tall friend.

“Yeah, but daddy-dearest terrifies the shit out of me,” Ben shrugs. “Bring it up with him.”

Rey narrows her eyes at her husband who’s still packing up the Falcon, unaware that his friend had just sold him out. Oh, she would most certainly be bringing it up with him. She taps her foot in the hangar bay, grumbling under her breath. Poe pauses in moving a crate of supplies and wipes his face with his shirt – and _damn._ Rey forgets why she’s mad, and excuses herself to go and cool down in their now-empty room.

It’s the emptiness of their quarters that makes her pause. When Poe wander in a quarter hour later, he finds her crying in the middle of the room.

“Oh gods,” Poe jogs to her side and tugs on her elbow. “What’s wrong, Sunshine?”

“It’s silly,” she whispers.

 _It can’t be silly if it bothers you,_ he tells her, and she huffs, knowing he got that line from her.

“It’s just –we shared everything here,” Rey sniffs, wiping her nose on her arm wrappings. “Our first kiss, the first time we had sex, the first time you told me you loved me – it was all here.”

Poe kisses his wife, and she cries harder. “Sorry,” she whispers. “Sorry, all these pregnancy hormones, they’re just –” she gestures helplessly and cries some more.

“Are you sure it’s just general pregnancy?” Finn asks, popping into the room for the last item, Niney’s charging station. He’s grinning way too mischievously. “Sure it’s not the fact that you’re carrying a tiny little Poe in there, and it’s infecting you with its Dameron tears?”

Rey bursts into actual sobs at that, and Finn looks immediately apologetic. “Oh gods, I’m sorry, what did –”

“No,” Rey sniffs. “No, I’m happy – Poe –” Her husband rests his hands on her small bump. “Poe, this baby is part-you.”

“I know,” he smiles at her, and then he’s crying too, his forehead against hers. “It’s part both of us.”

Finn backs out of the room, hands raised. “Imma go…pack the Falcon, yeah. I’m gonna just…”

“But you’re the godfather,” Rey sniffs, resting her head on her husband’s sturdy chest. “You have to stay.”

“I’m the godfather?” Finn looks delighted. “Aw, hells.” He wipes his eyes conspicuously, his gold wedding band shining in the dim light, and edges out of the room fully. “Sorry there’s…space dust…everywhere.” Rey laughs, and buries her face in her husband’s shirt while her best friend runs from the room.

“You’re incredible,” Poe whispers in her hair. “You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met, and we’re going to have a baby together.”

The more he says it, the happier she gets. Rey pulls back slightly to look at him, and chews her bottom lip.

“This is our last time in this room,” she says shyly. “Do you want to…” She’s spared finishing the thought by pushing a stream of memories through the Bond.

“Why, Mrs. Dameron,” Poe gasps, mock-scandalized. “It’d be my genuine pleasure.” He runs to close and lock the door, and then scoops her up. He carries her laughing to the mattress, where they make a new set of happy memories, tangled in the sheets of the first bed that they ever shared.

**

Week 35

Poe watches in vague amusement as Ben and Rey throw various items around using the Force.

“Are you sure –” he’d asked his wife the first time.

“I swear to the gods, Poe Dameron, if you tell me I can’t lift things using the _Force,_ I will throw you up on the Ancient Temple and I will not let you down before supper.”

Finn’s perched on a pile of duralumber, looking for all the world fast asleep, but he insists to anyone who asks him that he’s “Meditating. Jedi shit, you wouldn’t understand.”

The three current members of the rebuilt Jedi Order are all in one place, and today they’re working on the new Dameron house on Yavin 4.

Kes shows up around midday with refreshments, and they all take a break to sit in the shade. Poe rubs a hand over his wife’s ankles, which are now, in the fifth month of pregnancy, definitely swollen, and laughs at the story shared by Rose about Finn’s blunder on Canto Bight during their honeymoon.

“You did not try to use the Force to convince them you’d already put chips down!” Rey says, outraged. “Finn, the Force is an incredible responsibility, and –”

“Aw, come on, scavenger,” Ben pokes at her with his foot. “You’re sounding like my uncle.”

Rey mutters something about Skywalkers being the bane of her existence, and Poe leans back against a tree and basks in the joy of the moment.

It’s everything he could ever ask for, and he’s still reeling from the knowledge that this is his life, this wonderful, ridiculous joy he feels is _real_ and _forever._  

Week 42

They’re staying in Poe’s old room while their new house is still under construction. The rainy season has made it increasingly difficult for them to continue work, and even hardy, stubbon-as-a-bantha Ben Solo had retreated to the Falcon for the week.

Rey’s been napping more frequently, and Poe’s taken to just lying back in bed and staring at her peaceful, beautiful face. She’d poked him viciously last week when he declared her “glowing,” but had graciously allowed him to cover her swollen stomach with kisses in his uncontrollable joy.

He can hear her dreams in the Force, though, and he grins to himself before slipping out of bed and sprinting across the compound, the driving rain striking his bare chest in a way that’s entirely invigorating.

“Hey, _papa_ ,” he calls, jogging into the main house.

“Hey, _mijo_ ,” Kes laughs. “That’s quite an outfit.” Poe flaps his hands at his father and digs around in the cooling unit in the back of the kitchen.

“Aha!” He proclaims triumphantly. “I’m taking this, okay, thanks dad, bye dad!”

“You only love me for my groceries!” Kes accuses him as Poe sprints for the door. “It’s like you’re a teenager all over again.”

Poe blows a kiss to his father before barreling back out into the rain. He splashes through the puddles forming on the ground, and shakes himself off in the entrance before ducking back into his room.

Rey’s still asleep in his bed, the sheet tangled around her body. Poe breathes heavily through his nose, disbelief that _this_ is his reality all too potent. He loves her, gods he loves her, his wife, his _pregnant_ wife. They’re going to have a baby, gods, he loves her, he’s never loved her more.

She blinks awake. “I could hear you,” Rey laughs, sitting up. She curves her arm around her stomach, tenderly.

“Sorry,” he’s immediately contrite. “Sorry, you need your rest, sorry.”

“No, that’s fine.” She smiles at him, and he returns it, as always, caught in her gravity as he stumbles forward. “Why are you all wet?” _Not that I’m complaining._ He feels a flare of appreciation for his current state of undress through the Bond, and he blushes. Ain’t that something: almost three years of marriage, and the idea that his wife wants him still makes him blush.

“Went to get you something.” He produces the item he’d just stolen from Kes. “Saw that you were dreaming about it. I’m only a little offended that you weren’t dreaming about me.”

“Oh gods, I love you.” Rey’s eyes widen, and Poe grins at the way her small hands reach out, for both him _and_ the frozen blue milk he’s holding. He snags a towel from the laundry and wraps it around his shoulders before he sits on the bed with his wife.

“I love you too, Mrs. Dameron.” They lean in simultaneously to kiss, and it’s tender and joyful and –

Rey’s stomach growls. Poe laughs and produces a spoon from his sodden pocket. He’s about to hand it to his wife when an image of what she actually wants flashes through the Bond.

It makes him smile, delightedly. “I can definitely do that.”

Rey blushes, embarrassed, but Poe’s already scooping a hearty amount of the ice cream up and holding it up to her rosebud of a mouth. Rey rolls her eyes but eats the bite, her eyes closing in bliss.

“Mm,” she moans. “Oh kriff, that’s perfect.” Poe shifts on the bed, willing his sudden and undeniable erection to go down.

Rey notices, of course, because he had to go and marry a Jedi, and she winks at him before taking the spoon and doing something that is absolutely unnecessary for the enjoyment of ice cream to the utensil with her tongue.

“Guh,” Poe mutters, rubbing his neck. “Gods, I’m a pervert.”

“If you are, then I am too,” Rey tells him cheerfully, snagging the tub of ice cream and eating merrily.

“Slow down, sweetheart, I’m not going to distract you,” Poe laughs.

“I’m eating fast so we can skip to sex,” Rey informs him as primly as possible with her mouth full of food. Poe can’t argue with that, so he just takes her small feet in his hand and rubs them lovingly while she finishes her treat. The empty container sits next to the bed before long, and Rey’s moaning for an entirely different reason as his thumbs find all the points of pressure that have been plaguing her the last few days.

“What do you want to do, Sunshine?” Poe asks. Rey doesn’t respond, not out loud, but the image she sends him is undeniable, and something that he’s more than onboard with. “Thought you didn’t want me to pamper you?” He teases her, already setting her foot down and spreading her legs gently.

“Are you complaining?” Rey asks, grabbing a pillow and putting it behind her back.

“Quite the opposite, I assure you, Mrs. Dameron.” Poe winks at his wife before pulling the blanket away from the lower half of her body. He lies down on his stomach and kisses the inside of her thigh tenderly. She jumps when his months-old beard scratches at the sensitive skin. “Sorry, sorry,” he whispers.

“Don’t be sorry, just do it again,” she scolds him, hands already tangling in his hair.

“Bossy,” Poe mutters, already complying.

Gods, he loves his wife. He spends the next thirty minutes showing her just how much he does.

**

Week 51

They’re at cruising speed, four hours into a flight to a neighboring moon for supplies, when it happens.

Ben looks up, terrified, at the same time Rey clutches her stomach and groans.

“That’s weird,” she mutters. “That’s…that’s really weird.”

“What?” Poe turns in the pilot’s chair automatically. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just feel kind of weird today,” Rey wrinkles her nose. “But, it’s gone now. Probably just gas from the shit they served for lunch.”

“I made lunch,” Ben reminds her, still frowning. Rey winks at him, but a minute later she groans again. “Breathe, Rey.” Ben stands up fluidly and puts a hand on her back. “Breathe.”

She must not have blocked the next wave of pain from the Bond because Poe yelps and turns around. “How long have you been feeling like that, sweetheart?”

“Since this morning,” Rey whispers, her body folding in half as she grits her teeth. She pants heavily, her hands on her knees, breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth.

_Oh fuck._

“It’s too early,” Poe murmurs, hands raised, almost a full yard away from his wife’s stomach, and mouth open in horror. “It’s too early, Sunshine.”

“You think I don’t know that?” She hisses, turning her face up to look at him before she lets her head hang down again. “Ohhh, fuckity fuck fuck.”

“Kalonia’s at base, she isn’t supposed to come to us for weeks.” Poe yanks on his hair. “We have to go back to Yavin 4.” He turns the Falcon around effortlessly and begins to go back the way they came.

“I am not giving birth in the jungle, after sludging through space at bantha pace,” Rey snarls. “We’re going to base.”

“No,” Ben shakes his head, ferociously. “No, we should keep on our path to Yavin 2. They have an up-to-date medical center there.” When Poe shows no sign of changing course, Ben’s hand goes to his lightsaber. _Now is not the time for you to be a cocky asshole,_ he wants to shout at Poe.

“I’m not giving birth without Kalonia,” Rey says, an edge of hysteria in her typically musical voice. She winces again, breathing through a contraction. “Get her on the comms, Poe.”

“You got it, Sunshine.” Poe fiddles briefly and then curses loudly and creatively. “I forgot: the comms are down for scheduled maintenance this afternoon. I’ll try to get in on a different frequency, but –” There’s only the crackle of static. The three exchange looks of varying degrees of horror, and then Rey’s mouth sets in a stubborn line.

 _That can’t be good._ Ben thinks dryly, right before Rey shoves him and Poe to the side of the cockpit through the Force.

“Fuck this, we’re going to base,” she snaps, clutching her stomach with one hand, and powering the Falcon into Hyperspace with the other.

“Sweetheart, no!” Poe tries to stop her, but it’s too late. They’re already flying at lightspeed. Rey huffs and rolls her eyes as Poe protests, “It isn’t safe to travel in Hyperspace in the last month of pregnancy.”

“Good thing I’m just barely in the last month of pregnancy,” Rey gripes, before grabbing her swollen abdomen again.

“That’s enough, both of you,” Ben firmly commands. He puts his hands on Rey’s trembling shoulders. “Breathe, scavenger, match my breath.” She nods and breathes in and out with him for several minutes while Poe returns to the pilot’s chair.

It’s a quick jump to base, not even an hour, but Rey grows increasingly red-faced – underneath the flush, her skin is strangely ashen, and Ben’s stomach roils more and more. His legs are shaking too hard to stand, so he settles in a chair and tries his hardest not to stare at his best friend, the love of his life, her body bent in half from the pain of labor.

 _Don’t fight the fear,_ he tells himself. _Acknowledge what you know instead, to meet the fear and live with it. Rey is healthy. Rey is strong. The baby has been healthy at all the check-ups. This is just a fluke. They can suspend labor. She won’t give birth on the Falcon._

The Force-Ghost of Anakin Skywalker flickers in and out of sight, his face crossed with desperation. Ben realizes he’s the only one who can see his grandfather.

“Don’t let her die,” Anakin begs him, his voice strangely distant. “Don’t let –” a shocking Force vision rips through Ben’s mind.

 _Padme Amidala screams in agony, and then she weeps as she names her children. Love is the last expression on her face before her eyes close for the final time. The vision shifts, slightly, and it’s terrifying, how much Rey looks like his grandmother, how much the love on her still, pale face mirrors Padme’s_.

“Rey,” Ben whispers, pushing the Force through Poe’s ears so he cannot hear his next question. “Rey, have you had any visions about this?”

Rey grits her teeth but doesn’t respond – that’s his answer. “Scavenger,” Ben snarls. “What did you see?”

“Stop fucking with my husband’s ears,” Rey snarls back. And then she wails in pain, and Ben loses focus, loses control over the small obstacle he’s put up around Poe.

The pilot catches the last of his wife’s agonized cry, and he jerks around from the viewer to stare at her in horror.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Poe demands, eyes half-crazed in panic.

“Hurts,” Rey whimpers. Agony roils through the Force, her signature defined by it.

 _That’s it._ Ben rounds on Poe. “You did this to her, you piece of banthashit!” He accuses. “This is all—your—fault.” The former Supreme Leader jabs his finger into the former soldier’s arm with each word.

“My fault?” Poe counters. “How the fuck is this my fault?”

“Use your imagination, Colonel! Think about _all the ways this is your fault._ You and your –”

“Do _not_ talk about _my_ —”

“I could _kill_ you –”

“Ugh!” Rey roars. They stop arguing to look at her, and her face is twisted in fury and pain. “I’m going to murder both of you if you don’t figure out a kriffing way for my baby to NOT BE BORN IN FUCKING OUTER SPACE!” Rey screams even louder than Ben thought possible.

“We’re almost there, sweetheart,” Poe assures his wife, fingers flying over the controls, attention back on the viewer. Rey grits her teeth and clutches the back of a co-pilot’s chair, and Ben leaps up, his hands hovering over her back, unsure if she wants anyone to touch her or not.

“Ben’s right,” Rey sobs, cradling her stomach. “You’re a Forcedamned moof-milker, Poe Dameron!”

“I know,” Poe nods desperately, looking away from the viewer of the Falcon at his sweating wife. “I know, Sunshine, I am, I’m the worst.” They drop out of Hyperspace, not even lurching, already entering the beginnings of atmo without so much as a hitch, because _of course Poe wasn’t lying about being the best pilot in the galaxy,_ and Ben grits his teeth as Rey wails again. “Fuck! Ben, take over.” Poe snaps, abandoning the controls. The Falcon flies on steadily towards the planet, and Ben sits down, quickly configuring the secondary-engines and initiating atmo-approach.

He hears his friend murmur to his wife soothingly. “Sunshine, baby, sweetheart, you’re doing so well.” Ben smirks, feeling the explosion before it happens.

“Fuck you!” Rey snaps. “Fuck you and fuck doing well. I don’t want to do this at all – you do this!”

Poe laughs, weakly, and Ben rolls his eyes. He doesn’t have to be Force-sensitive to know that Poe’s crying already.

“Sunshine, we’re going to have a baby,” Poe mutters wonderingly. “This – gods I wish I could do it for you, but kriff, you’re so incredible. You’re going to be a mother, Rey.”

She sniffles, and Ben’s neck burns. Why must he be privy to this intimate moment between his brother and the woman he once so desperately loved he tried to burn the galaxy after losing her to this very man? This woman he still loves, to this day, in impossible and difficult to fathom ways? Why, Force? _Oh right. All the genocide._ This must be his punishment.

“You’re going to be a dad,” Rey whispers. Another whimper of pain, but she talks through it. “Poe, you’re going to be a father.”

“Yeah,” he laughs, an aching sound that resonates in Ben’s gut. He closes his eyes against the feeling, willing that neither Dameron can hear the yearning in his soul. “Yeah, sweetheart, we’re going to be parents. And we’re going to love this tiny, perfect person more than anything else in the galaxy.”

“Mhm.” Ben feels another ripple of agonizing pain in the Force, but Rey doesn’t react to it. His own brow furrows from it, but they’re close to the planet’s surface now; he can see the hangar bay waiting for them. “But Poe, what if they don’t like flying?”

“We’ll love ‘em anyway,” Poe insists. “Or trade them in, I don’t know, how does this work?” Ben snorts and somehow, despite his shaking hands, lands the damn Falcon.

“Poe,” Rey laughs. There’s a beat and Ben frowns, already standing fluidly and turning around in response to what he’s felt.

“Rey,” he calls, already reaching out, “sit down,” and Poe looks at him, confused – and then he’s not confused.

It’s like space itself rips.

There’s blood – too much blood, Ben instinctively knows – coursing down Rey’s legs. She’s growing steadily paler, and she looks at Poe, her eyes not seeming to understand.

“What?” she whispers, and then her body tenses and she falls, screaming in abject agony.

“Rey!” A twin shout from both men as they leap to catch her – Ben lets Poe hold her, and the pilot stumbles, grey-faced and cradling his wife. Ben runs to the ramp, pounding at the faulty control-pad, cursing his father’s shoddy repairs. “Godsdamnit, open!” Ben rips through the door with the Force, snarling, and bellows at a nearby tech, “Call a fucking Medical Officer! Get Kalonia! Now!”

“Stay with me sweetheart,” he can hear Poe, feel him, through the Force. “Gods, Rey, don’t leave me.”

**

The next four hours are the worst of Poe’s life.

Well – it’s up there, at least, with the days he spent waiting for news of Rey while she was captured by the First Order. He paces around the hallway after she’s admitted into intensive emergency care, Kalonia swooping in like some great, powerful bat, shooing away Ben and Poe from Rey’s bedside.

“You don’t need to see this,” she snapped.

Poe and Ben both had a number of colorful arguments about why they needed to be there, but for an 80-year-old woman, Kalonia was way more fucking terrifying than either of them. Rey’s screams were the last thing Poe heard before he was physically pushed into the hallway by an adamant Leia.

“Sorry, Poe,” she whispered to him before closing the door.

Now he stands in the hallway, yards away from his wife, several feet of fucking durasteel blocking her from him. The Bond was cacophonous at first – he couldn’t stand it, couldn't stand knowing she was in so much pain, but it was the last thread he had to her.

The last thing he heard in it was, _They told me to start pushing, I can’t do this, I can’t, not without you –_

Then, silence. Something had descended over the Bond, something powerful and bigger than either of them, and Poe had roared, slamming his fist into the wall.

“That’s effective,” Ben sniped at him, and had only just barely dodged Poe’s next strike.

Now, Ben’s sitting in meditation, across from the room, breathing heavily through his nose. Poe tries not to think about the look on his brother’s face, the realization he had on the Falcon today – Ben’s just as much in love with Rey as he ever was. He doesn’t know what to do with that, or with the heaviness in his heart that they both just might lose the woman they love today.

Poe shakes his head against the thought. Rey is strong. She’ll pull through.

The placenta had detached. That’s what caused the blood – Kalonia’s unsure if it was the jump into Hyperspace, or something that happened before. Rey’s organs and hormones were still unstable, an after-effect of the torture she’d suffered two years ago, and any number of issues could have arisen in this pregnancy, they knew that.

But it had gone so kriffing well before now, Poe doesn’t know, he doesn’t –

The door hisses open, and Poe’s ears catch on a whimper of pain from the room. “She’s asking for you,” Leia tells him. She looks exhausted, but not upset. Hopeful, definitely. “She has to keep pushing, and she said she wouldn’t without the father. Come on, Dameron.”

Poe nods and straightens up, striding forward into the room. He casts a glance over his shoulder at his best friend, and Ben cracks an eye open briefly and whispers, “Good luck, nerfherder,” before returning to his meditation. The door closes behind him, and Poe walks forward to his wife’s side.

Even though her eyes are closed, Rey’s been crying. It’s obvious, and Poe determinedly, definitely, does not look at the blood-stained sheets that have been removed from the bed and are sitting in a haz-material unit for incineration. He doesn’t look at the way her legs push against the bed periodically, almost involuntarily, he doesn’t look at the blood pressure reading or her heart monitor. He just looks at her sweaty, pale, exhausted face.

“Hey, Sunshine,” he whispers, stroking a hand down her clammy cheek. “Rey, I’m here.”

“You didn’t leave me,” Rey mumbles, eyes closed.

“Never,” he swears. “I meant it. I will never leave you, or our baby. We’re going to be a family.”

“Yeah?” Rey asks. Her eyes open, hazel and wide and luminous, and another tear escapes. “A family?”

“Yeah, sweetheart. You’re going to be a mother. Just – you need to push, Sunshine.” He looks at the doctors, tries his hardest not to look down, stomach twisting when he sees the blood, too much blood, how is there that much blood?

Kalonia nods at him from the foot of the bed, and Poe turns back to his wife, her face still lovely while twisted in pain. “Hold my hand, sweetheart,” he whispers. Rey’s trembling hands slips into his. “Push, you have to push.”

Rey screams, and Poe’s aware of at least one of his bones breaking in his hand, but he doesn’t care. She screams for what feels like an eon, and he lifts off the bed at one point, the Force moving erratically around his wife, but all he tells her is, “I love you.” It’s all he can say besides begging her to push.

She takes a break from pushing for a few minutes, and she tugs on his hand. “Poe,” she sobs, no tears coming because it doesn’t seem like there could be any left. “Poe, I love you too.”

It sounds like a goodbye, and he can’t have that. He brushes his lips against her forehead, and then her lips, and he prays to the Force, begs It to let her live.

A spiraling connection erupts inside his chest, and it’s like he’s under the Tree on his compound, eight years old again.

 _What is it you wish for, Poe Dameron?_ It asks him, both in the past and the present. _What will you ask of the Force, which will owe you a debt?_

 _I want to be happy,_ he tells it in his memory, and now. _I want a wife, and a family, and I want to always be there for them. I want to make my family happy._

 _It will be as you wish,_ the Tree whispers to him. He feels a tendril of Its light reach out through time and space to brush against his soul. _Even if it does not always seem that way. It will be as you wish._

“Push,” he urges Rey, in the present even while he draws strength from the past. “Please, sweetheart, don’t give up. Push.”

Rey screams again, louder and harsher than before, and after an agonizing minute and a half –

A new voice rises to meet it.

**

Leia walks into the neonatal wing of the Medical Bay at 0130. She had stayed away after Rey finished pushing, too drained and affected by Poe’s agony as his wife struggled to maintain consciousness. Ben’s misery only added to the potency of the environment – she needs to talk to her son about his obvious feelings for the other Jedi, and soon, but for now he’s fled the base and is sitting on the Falcon, stewing.

Now:

She can see Poe standing at an incubating station in the back, resting his head on the clear, protective box around a small crib. Several monitors are running, wires threading from their base into the tiny creche, and at the sight of it all, Leia begs the Force to let this child live. From what Kalonia had said, the organs were as well-formed as they could be, being born five weeks premature, and there was no great cause for alarm – Leia is just done with the nonsense this galaxy seems content serving to two of the best people she knows and loves.

“Hello, Colonel.” She greets the exhausted man, whose shoulders tremble as he gazes down on his child. Poe lifts his head to smile at her, and then places his cheek back down on the barrier.

“Hey, Leia.” He sounds as tired as he looks. “Remember, ‘m not a colonel anymore.”

“You earned the rank, you can keep it,” Leia tells him softly.

They stand in silence, Leia several feet away, suddenly aware that she may be intruding on a very private moment, judging by the tears on the pilot’s face.

“Do you want company?” She asks, smiling at him, unsure of herself for the first time in thirty years.

“Yeah. Rey’s sleeping. Could use some company,” he says, tears shining in the light of the neonatal unit as he holds a hand out to her, not lifting his head. “C’mere.”

Leia takes his warm hand, squeezing it lovingly, and walks forward to look down into the creche.

A tiny, beautiful, perfect baby sleeps under the warming lights, nutrients and medicine pumping into thin veins.

“Meet your grandma, little one,” Poe whispers to his child, fingers tightening over Leia’s. “This is your abuela.”

Leia’s crying too then, and it’s even more undeniable after he stands up straight to look her in the eye when he says:

“Grandma, meet Hana.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I continue dis sequel? 
> 
> Y/N
> 
> Adventures of Dad!Poe?
> 
>  
> 
> (PS, Hana also is Kurdish for 'hope' so yeah, Imma go sit in the corner and think about what I've done)

**Author's Note:**

> ** POV change  
> *** time jump
> 
> Thank you for reading <3 <3 <3


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